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HYPNOTISM: 

Its History and Present Development. 

BY 

FREDRIK BJORN STROM, M.D. 

Head Physician of the Stockholm Hospital, Pbopessor of Psychiatry, Late 
Royal Swedish Medical Councillor. 



AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION 
FROM THE SECOND SWEDISH EDITION. 



BY 



BARON NILS POSSE, M.G. 

DlBEOTOB OF THE BOSTON SCHOOL OF GYMNASTICS, 



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HYPNOTISM: 

Its History And Present Development. 



BY 



FREDRIK BJORNSTROM, M. D. 

Head Physician of the Stockholm Hospital, Professor of Psychiatry, Late Royal Swedish 

Medical Councillor. 



AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION 
FROM THE SECOND SWEDISH EDITION, 

BY 

BARON NILS POSSE, M. G. 

Director of the Boston School of Gymnastics. 
(COPYRIGHTED BY THR HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO. 





New York: 
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5#>* 



CONTENTS. 



I. HISTORICAL RETROSPECT 3 

II. DEFINITION OF HYPNOTISM; SUSCEPTIBILITY TO HYPNOTISM 11 

III. MEANS OR METHODS OF HYPNOTIZING 14 

IV. STAGES OR DEGREES OF HYPNOTISM 20 

V. UNILATERAL HYPNOTISM 2o- 

VI. PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF HYPNOTISM ! 28 

VII PSYCHICAL EFFECTS OF H YPNOTISM 35 

TRL SUGGESTION : 41 

IX. HYPNOTISM AS A REMEDIAL AGENT: 90 

X. HYPNOTISM AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION, OR AS A MORAL 

REMEDY 103 

XI. HYPNOTISM AND THE LAW 104 

XII. MISUSES AND DANGERS OF HYPNOTISM 115 

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HYPNOTISM. 



HYPNOTISM: 

ITS HISTORY AND PRESENT DEVELOPMENT. 

BY 

FREDRIK BJORNSTROM, M.D., 

Head Physician of the Stockholm Hospital, Professor of Psychiatry, Late Royal Swedish 

Medical Councillor. 

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE SECOND SWEDISH EDITION, BY 

BARON NILS POSSE, M.G., 

Director cf the Boston School of Gymnastics. 

/- 



PREFACE. 

Observandum sed non imitandum. 



This ancient classical dictum, which in our language might be 
translated, Investigate, but do not experiment, applies, with reference 
to the subject here treated, to both the physician and the public at 
large ; yet, in such a manner, that, while the first part applies to both, 
the second is for the public alone. 

Now that the old mystical and often misused animal magnetism 
has, under the modern name of hypnotism, entered upon a more scien- 
tific stage, and that prominent scientific men in France, Italy, Ger- 
many, and England, especially during the last decade, have commenced 
to separate the wheat from the chaff of this important subject, no edu- 
cated person should be ignorant of it, and above all, no physician 
should pass it by, on account of prejudice. 

Hence I have decided to try and give an easily comprehensible 
account of the development and present status of hypnotism, for the 
benefit of physicians as well as of lawyers and of the interested public ; 
and as my personal experience in the matter is as yet too small, I have 
collected from the best and latest authorities such facts as to me 
seemed surest, most reliable, and most instructive. I have especially 
illustrated the dark sides of hypnotism, and the many injurious effects 
upon the physical and psychic life of man, which may result from the 
abuse of it: and I would strongly advise those who have not had a 
medical education, not to meddle with this agent so dangerous and 
so difficult to control. 

If this treatise shall be the means of inducing more specialists 
seriously to investigate this subject, and to use their knowledge as an 



2 HYPNOTISM. 

aid in therapeutics ; and if by it the public shall be prevented irom 
playing with a fire by which oneself or others may be burnt, the object 
of my unpretentious work will be gained. Fr. Bjornstrom. 

Stockholm, October, 1887. 



PKEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

As, on account of the rapid sale of the first edition, the publisher 
has already decided to issue a new edition of this work, the author has 
availed himself of the opportunity to add a special chapter on the 
abuse and the dangers of hypnotism, so as still more to emphasize his. 
previously expressed warning to the public against a careless trifling 
with this force. 

The question has arisen, whether it could be considered proper to 
enlighten the public on such a dangerous subject. Before publishing 
his work, the author had the same doubts. But considering that the 
question is of so important and interesting a nature, that it neither 
could nor should be passed over in silence, especially as the overflow 
of foreign literature on the subject would soon make its way even here, 
the author concluded that the question could be most easily directed into 
the right channels, if it were taken hold of by a physician who has given 
special study to these phenomena. Fb. Bjorsstrom. 

Stockholm, November, 1887. 



CHAPTER I. 

fflSTORICAL RETROSPECT. 

THE wonderful psychical phenomena that are now-a-days embraced 
under the names of hypnotism and somnambulism,, and whioii as 
animal majnetism or mesmerism, stirred the world in the latter part of 
the last century and far into the present were known and used from 
the earliest times in the service of mysticism, prognostication, and 
religion, by the priests of ancient Egypt as well as by the old Indian 
fakirs, the Greek oracles, the Roman sibyls and the mediaeval magicians, 
exorcists, conjurers, pneumatologists, etc. 

At certain festivals in ancient Egypt, women and children were wont S 
to be inspired by the god Apis, and so entered into a prophetic trance. 
Traces are found also of spiritism : in Babylon there was a belief in rap- 
ping spirits, among the Israelites the Witch of Endor conjured the 
shadows of the dead just as does a spiritistic medium of the 19th century. 
In the temple of Ceres in Achaia, there was on the bottom of a well a 
mirror, in which the priests could produce the image of the sick for 
whom a cure was sought ; this corresponds, in a measure, to the photo- 
graphic pictures of spiritism. In the temple of Apollo, in Delphi, the 
priestess was seated on a tripod, placed over a chasm in the ground, 
from which vapors of sulphur arose. Prepared by fasting and mortifi- 
cation, she soon was in a kind of hypnotic trance, during which she trans- 
mitted her oracles from the gods, just like a somnambule. The Greek 
and Roman sibyls were clairvoyant only on certain occasions, when 
they had convulsions. The skill of the Indian fakir in spiritistic mat- 
ters approaches the incredible, and deserves a special description that 
space will not allow here, particularly as it widely passes the limits of 
ordinary hypnotism. 

After the introduction of Christianity, the belief in the divine 
origin of these phenomena ceased. They were looked upon instead 
as the works of the devil, and those who possessed such power were 
regarded as obsessed, as sorceresses, as bewitched, etc. Those witches 
who were inhumanly persecuted during the middle ages and even up 
tc recent times, were nothing but somnambules, who easily entered 
into the hypnotic state ; and this was so common, that in the year 
1600 the number of witches in France was reckoned to be nearly 
300,000. Under the most dreadful tortures they often fell asleep and 
"became senseless. Sometimes this also occurred among religious 
fanatics; thus it is told of one of the persecuted Hussites, that he fell 
into such a lethargic state under torture, that he was left for dead, 



4 HYPNOTISM. 

but that he afterward wakened to life very much astonished at the 
wounds he had received without feeling any pain. 

Some showed great clairvoyance concerning both past and future 
things. Others displayed a marvelous development of the senses and 
heard the slightest noise from immense distances. Some spoke in 
foreign languages, which they did not know w T hen in normal condition r 
as in the case of the fanatics of Auxanne (1652) ; they could also read 
the secret thoughts of others, and obeyed involuntarily orders that 
hs^ been thought but not uttered. 

The descriptions of the condition of the obsessed correspond 
thoroughly with what is now seen in the hypnotized : tetanus, catalepsy, 
lethargy, somnambulism, and often also hystero-epileptic convulsions. 
They also lost the memory of what they had said or done during the 
ecstatic state. In some, this excited state of the nervous system 
changed to real mental disease, which often took that form of insanity 
in which the patient imagines himself transformed into an animal, as a 
wolf, lycanthropy, or into a vampire, vampirismus, lamismus (lamia- 
vampire). The remedy consisted in exorcism or the efforts of the 
priests to conjure away the evil spirits, by which these persons were 
considered beset, and in which a kind of hypnotic manipulations were 
used. The radical means of burning them on a pile, as witches, was 
however generally resorted to, after they had been previously tormen- 
ted by juridical procedures, in which the most cruel torture was used, 
as also superstitious methods for testing their real witchcraft, such as 
the witch's scales, etc. 

These nervous conditions show great contagiousness. In the 
beginning of the 18th century a single Calvinist, hailing from a village 
in Dauphine, was sufficient to impart a prophetic spirit to the whole 
population. By a magnetic inspiration of this spirit through the 
mouth of some persons, who afterwards communicated it to others, no 
less than 8,000 or 10,000 prophets arose in Dauphine, Yivarais, and the 
Cevennes. Men, women, children, old men, all prophesied the future. 
Children, three years old, who never before had spoken anything but 
the patois of the province, now during the trance, spoke the purest 
French with astonishing ease, foretelling the speedy destruction of the 
papistic Babylon. 

Another hypnotic phenomenon which has survived from the most 
ancient into the latest times (Boltzius !*), is the curing of certain 
diseases by the laying on of hands. During the Middle Ages most 
European kings and princes considered themselves especially gifted 
with this power. But also persons of lower rank occupied themselves 
with this convenient mode of healing, and as particularly prominent 
thaumaturgists are mentioned Greatrakes and Gassner. One day 

* Boltzius was a fanatic who, but a few years ago in Sweden, "healed the sick" by prayer and 
the laying on of hands, until the Board of Health put a stop to his proceedings. 



HYPNOTISM. 5 

in 1662, the former, an Irishman and soldier of distinction, had a 
divine revelation that he could cure scrofula by the laying on of hands 
alone. He tried and succeeded with one after another. He had a 
new revelation that in the same mariner he could cure fevers, wounds 
dropsy, etc. His fame spread enormously ; patients nocked to him 
from all directions ; by stroking, he led the disease from the centre to 
the periphery ; often crises resembling the mesmeric were produced. 
About 100 years later, in 1773, another performer of miracles (Gassner) 
appeared, an ex-monk from Suabia, who, after having passed through 
Suabia, Switzerland, and Tyrol, settled in Regensburg, where he drew 
around him 10,000 patients. He commenced his cure by exorcism to 
try whether any devil were in the body, who would show himself by 
convulsions. His cure of a young German lady of high rank aroused the 
most comment; her devil showed perfect obedience to Gassner's Latin 
words of command ; but then the girl was thoroughly versed in Latin. 

Here we see unconscious magnetizers or hypnotizers, who practised 
magnetism or hypnotism long before these names had been invented. 

In Egypt, there is a sect that for forty centuries has practised 
hypnotism. In the middle of a white porcelain plate they draw with 
pen and ink, two triangles that cross each other, fill the figures with 
some cabalistic words, and pour oil over the plate to make it more 
shiny. By staring for some minutes at the middle of the triangles 
young people easily fall asleep and enter the somnambulistic state. 
Others use only a ball of crystal. Similar agencies are used by Arabic 
sorceresses. and Morocco marabouts. The former draw in the hand 
a circle with a black spot in the centre. Staring at this spot soon pro- 
duces hypnotic sleep and loss of sensibility. The latter place on a 
table, covered with a clean cloth, a bottle filled with water in front of 
a lamp, and sleep is produced by fixing the eyes on the light in the 
focus of the bottle. In Constantine, the members of the tribe of the 
Beni-Aiaoussa sit down in a circle, amid music from drums and casta- 
nets, and perform first a number of voluntary swaying movements, 
until with foaming mouth, staring eyes, and bodies dripping with 
perspiration, they fall into convulsions and insensibility, during which 
they pierce their flesh with daggers, walk on red-hot iron, swallow 
pieces of glass, etc., without the slightest pain, and finally, exhausted, 
fall into deep slumber. 



Most of the above mentioned phenomena, covered by the veil of 
mysticism, we find again in the end of the last and the beginning of 
fchis century, in the facts — too much mingled with quackery — of ani- 
mal magnetism, which finally gains its scientific explanation and illus- 
tration in the hypnotism of to-day. 

First a few words about Mesmer and the animal magnetism. 

Friedrich Anton Mesmer, born 1734, in a village on Lake Con- 
stance, pursued his medical studies in Vienna. In 1766, after he had 



6 HYP NO TISM. 

treated the mystic subject " The influence of the planets on the human 
body " in a thesis for the degree of Doctor, he commenced to use mineral 
magnetism as a remedy, and explained its action by a corresponding 
magnetic quality of the human body. Soon he considered magnetism 
as a quality common to all bodies and as the bond which held together 
the whole creation ; this now took the name of animal magnetism. 
"Through certain manipulations (such as touching, stroking, in a word 
'magnetizing'), even simply by merely a strong act of the will, one can," 
he says, "produce this power in persons, impart it to others, and 
cause the most marvelous and wholesome effects." The magnet now 
became superfluous, and cures were performed by only the newly-dis- 
covered animal magnetism. By medical men and physicists, however, he 
was considered a juggler, who made his cures through hidden magnets. 
His letters to most of the learned societies of Europe were left un- 
answered, except by the Acadamy of Berlin which declared his theory 
fallacious. On a journey to Suabia and Switzerland, he witnessed the 
miraculous cures of Father Gassner and declared that they were pro- 
duced by animal magnetism. In Vienna, he was afterward violently 
attacked on account of the alleged cure of a blind girl (Marie Par- 
adise), and he was expelled from that city in 1777, after an investi- 
gation by an imperial commission. He then moved to Paris and by 
his intimacy with Dr. Charles d'Eslon, physician to the Count of 
Artois, he was soon introduced into the fashionable world, which fas- 
cinated by the mystic doctrine, before long crowded his parlors. How 
things went on in these parlors was vividly described by Dr. I. V. 
Broberg, in his lectures delivered in 1865, on " Animal Magnetism an i 
the Mysticism of the 18th Century." From it we borrow the follow- 
ing particulars: 

Mesmer's parlors in the hotel at the Place Vendpme soon became 
the rendezvous of the Paris fashionable world. In the so-called 
experimenting room, there stood in the middle of the floor a round tub, 
a "baquet" with a diameter of about five feet and provided with a lid. 
On the bottom of it bottles were so placed that some had their necks 
converging towards the centre, while others diverged outwards. If 
possible, all the bottles we,re magnetized by the same hand. The tub 
was filled with water, so that the bottles were covered ; through the 
lid, which was provided with several holes, bent iron bars protruded. 
The walls of the room were covered with mirrors, by the reflection of 
which the magnetism was increased, according to the doctrine of Mes- 
mer. The patients were placed in a circle around the tub or "baquet" 
and so close together that they were in contact with each other's knees. 
Each one held in his hand one of the iron bars that protruded from 
the baquet. Generally there was placed a second row of patients be- 
hind the first — and often there were several rows — who formed closed 
•chains by holding each other's hands and who were in contact with 



HYPNOTISM. 7 

the tub by means of long magnetized cords. Besides, all the patients 
were mutually connected through a cord twisted around each one's 
waist, so that the magnetic force might thus the more easily pass from 
one to another. A mystic twilight prevailed in the room. The ear 
was charmed by sweet melodies played on harp and piano and during 
the pauses a harmonium sounded its soft vibrating tones, an instru- 
ment that Mesmer played with a master hand. Men and women were 
now sitting beside each other, holding the mystic bars from the tub and 
each other's hands ; first one, then another began to experience strange 
sensations and twitchings, which were soon imparted to all of them. 
Then Mesmer solemnly entered, dressed in a violet robe of embroidered 
silk, holding in his hand an iron staff. With majestic dignity he 
w T alked around and stroked the patients. Within a short time the 
healing crises appeared. Various hysterical attacks took place. The 
j^atients jumped up, wept, laughed, embraced each other, beat the walls 
had convulsions, rolled on the floor, etc. "Those who have not actually 
witnessed the scenes in Mesmer's parlor's," a contemporary writes, "can 
hardly form an idea of them. On the other hand, if we witness them 
we can only be astonished partly at the complete tranquility and 
repose displayed by some, partly also at the violent excitement shown 
by others. We see some sympathetically drawn to each other and loving- 
ly trying to relieve each other's crises. They are all blindly submissive 
to the magnetizer. Even though they be in apparent trance, they are 
immediately wakened by the slightest gesture of the magnetizer, by his 
mere glance. A sudden noise causes the most terrible convulsions." 
Those w 7 ho had really terrible crises of healing: were carried into an 
adjoining room, the w T alls and floor of which were covered by well-pad- 
ded mattresses, so that, without any risk, they could fight for health as 
best they were able. 

After having quarreled with the faculty and the physicians of Paris, 
as well as with his friend d'Eslon, who told Mesmer's secrets and opened 
a parlor of his own, Mesmer left Paris in disgust, but was soon called 
back by his friends, instituted a secret magnetic order under the name 
of Societe or Ordre de V Harmonie, opened his parlors anew 7 , and also 
constructed smaller baquets for private parties which were in such 
demand that subscription had to be made for them long in advance. 
Persons w^orn out by idling, laziness, and pleasures came in crowds to 
his hotel, and he soon accumulated a large fortune. 

In the principal cities throughout all France, magnetic societies or 
harmonic orders so called, were formed under the headship of Mesmer. 
The expectations of people had no limits ; man was to become stronger 
and more healthy, even the animals w r ould be better and the magnet- 
ized tree would bear finer fruit and its leaves would not fade. In 
other words, through magnetism a real golden age was expected to 
come. 



8 HYPNOTISM. 

In 1784, however, the government appointed a committee of 
learned men (among them Franklin, Lavoisier, Jussieu, Bailly) to 
make a minute scientific investigation of the celebrated question. 
When Mesmer refused to open his parlors for this investigation, the 
experiments were made at d'Eslon's. Most of them were unsuccessful, 
and in the report, ably written by Bailly, all the magnetic marvels were 
referred to the workings of imagination. His report ends with the 
words; — "Magnetism is one fact more in the history of human errors, 
and a great proof of the power of imagination." 

After this blow, the star of Mesmer gradually declined in Paris, 
especially after a new one had arisen in the famous imposter, Cagliostro, 
who soon attracted the public by his conjurings and his " powder of 
immortality." In the country, however, magnetism spread for some 
time through the many pupils of Mesmer. He himself retired, left 
Paris at the outbreak of the revolution, lived after that for some time 
in England under another name, and finally died, in 1815, in the small 
city of Meersburg. D'Eslon on the contrary, continued his magnetic 
cures in Paris until his death in 1786, which, strange to say, was 
caused by pneumonia, although he himself had declared, that he was 
so well magnetized that death could reach him only tnrough accident 
or decrepitude. 

A new era commenced, however, in the history of animal magnet- 
ism, inasmuch as the convulsive crises began to be considered more 
injurious than beneficial, and under the direction of Mesmer's most 
zealous pupil, the marquis de JPuysegur, attention was instead given 
to somnambulism and -clairvoyance, as being the principal effects of 
magnetism. When the marquis, on his estate at Busancy, near Sois- 
sons, was so crow T ded by persons seeking help, that he could not per- 
sonally magnetize them all, he conceived the bright idea of magnetizing 
a tree in his park, an elm, the radiating power of which afterward 
attracted numerous multitudes. Puys^gur soon discovered the sopo- 
rific effect of magnetism, as also that during the sleep persons an- 
swered questions and often proved much brighter and more intelligent 
than in the wakeful state. This was notably the case with an other- 
wise very stupid peasant, who, during the magnetic sleep, showed 
himself so discerning and clairvoyant that M. de Puysvlgur used to 
call him "my intelligence." Now new life entered. into the magnetic 
societies and a theory invented by Tardy de Montravel was universally 
accepted, that man, besides his ordinary five senses, has a sixth sense, 
the internal sense, the organ of which is the whole nervous system, 
but whose principal seat is the large nerve plexus of the stomach. 
This sense corresponds to the instinct of animals. When the external 
senses are benumbed and the organ of instinct is in a state of increased 
activity, this sense performs alone the functions of all the others. 
The soul of the somnambulist can thus see and comprehend not only 




HYPNOTISM. 

the condition within the bodies of others, but also within his own 
body. Through this internal sense the somnambulist can read any 
kind of writing without using his eyes. To produce this condition, 
Mesmer's elaborate apparatus was not necessary, but merely soft 
strokings or even a strong will only. In this new Puyseguric form, 
magnetism again gained a strong following, also through Germany 
(through Lavater), England, Holland, and Italy. 

Sweden also was favored by one of Mesmer's pupils, Marais, 
who in 1786 made various magnetic experiments before certain high 
officials in Stockholm. The Swedenborgian society known as the 
exegetic and philanthropic society, interested itself especially in magnet- 
ism, and even before the end of 1786 there were in this city, both a 
harmonic society and a baquet. 



/", 



To the English surgeon, James Braid of Manchester, who in 1842 
published his work " Neurypnology," belongs the merit of having 
taken animal magnetism out of the dark region of charlatanry and 
brought it into the clear light of science ; of having proved that its 
phenomena do not depend upon a fluid transmitted from the magnet- 
izer, but on nerve forces working within the organism of the one mag- 
netized ; and finally, of having given the whole thing the more suitable 
name of hypnotism. In order to expose the impostures of mesmer- 
ism, he began, in November 1841, to study the subject at the seances 
of Lafontaine. He then found that at least one phenomenon did not 
depend upon imposture, viz., the spasmodic closing of the eyelids. 
Thinking that this spasm must result from fatigue in certain muscles 
of the eye, he had his friend Walker to gaze fixedly at the neck of a 
bottle, and within three minutes his eyes closed, tears ran down his 
cheeks, his head drooped — a sigh, and he fell into a deep sleep. The 
experiment was repeated on Braid's wife and on a servant girl with 
the same result. He now tried the procedures of the magnetizers 
with equal success. From this he concluded that the magnetic phe- 
nomena must be attributed to a disturbance of the nervous system, 
produced by the concentration of the visual powers, the absolute re- 
pose of the body, and the fixing of the attention ; that all depended 
on the physical and psychical condition of the subject, not on the will 
of the magnetizer or on any magnetic fluid, or on any general mystic 
agert. Accordingly, he let the subjectivity of the sleeper play the 
main role, and he explained numerous somnambulistic phenomena by a 
morbidly increased sensibility^ — hypercesthesicL^. 

Furthermore, Braid found that the hypnotic sleep is not always 
the same, but varies from a light dreaming state to a deep coma. In 
some, the sleep is quite light, in others, so deep that they lose con- 
sciousness and will, and remember nothing after awakening. In some, 
entire muscular relaxation takes place, in others, cataleptic tetanus 



10 HYPNOTISM. 

with increased respiration and circulation. Change from one state to 
the other could be produced by directing a current of air against the 
face, and awakening could be produced in the same way. 

/ Braid also understood " suggestion " although he did not use this 
name. One can play he says on the sleeper as on a musical instrument, 
and create dreams in their imagination which they accept as reality. 
In order to produce illusions and hallucinations, you need only to 
declare in loud voice and in a commanding or persuading manner, the 
thought picture or sensation that you wish to call up in his mind. 
Hallucinations can also be produced indirectly by corresponding atti- 
tudes of the limbs. A subject placed in an attitude of ecstasy sees 
Heaven : if you wrinkle his forehead he experiences gloomy fantasies. 
Even in those who are awake, suggestions have been produced and 
employed as a means of mesmerizing from a distance. As a means of 
curing diseases, Braid tried hypnotism with more or less success. 

In spite of the great scientific value of Braid's theories (orBraidism) 
they did not, however, gain much ground with the medical profession, 
nor did they prevent various less scientific theories in explanation of 
this kind of phenomena from trying to attain prominence, such as in 
America Grimes's Electrobiology, in Germany Reichenbach's Odology 
and Barth's Phrenoinagnetismus, in France Philips's Electrodynam- 
isme Vitale. In England, hypnotism was but little known or noticed, 
although the articles "Sleep" in Todd and Carpenter's Encyclopaedia 
and "Hypnotisme" in Nysten's " Dictionnaire de Medecine," 1855, as 
also Meunier's article in La Presse, 1852, were designed to bring it 
before the public. 

Although the opinion of the scientific world was against the cause, 
there were however some French physicians who were sufficiently 
aware of the importance of this question to study it, and who had 
courage enough to publish their investigations,, as Professor Azam, of 
Bordeaux, who, after experimenting a couple of years, together with his 
afterwards famous colleagues, Broca and Verneuil, in 1860, published 
his own experiences in the medical journal Archives Generates de 
Medecine. Shortly before this, Velpeau had related before the French 
Academy Broca's success in using hypnotism as an anodyne in surgi- 
cal operations. 

In 1860 interesting observations were also published by Demar- 
quay and Giraud Teulon, by Philips and Guerineau. In 1865, Pro- 
fessor Lasegue showed how catalepsy and various hypnotic phenomena 
could be produced in hysterical women simply by a pressure on the 
closed eyelids, and in 1866, Liebault of Nancy pointed out the use of 
hypnotism as a valuable means not only of curing disease, but also of 
education for the improvement of character and morals. In 1875, 
Richet showed among other things how the personality can be changed 
by hypnotism. 



rift 



HYPNOTISM. 11 

These single experiments however succeeded but little in arousing 
the interest of scientists for hypnotism, while the curiosity of the pub- 
lic was from time to time revived by traveling professional magnetizers. 
In the beginning of this decade, one of these, Hansen, a Dane, succeeded 
in interesting some German professors in the scientific solution of the 
question, and the result of this w T as some works by Heidenhain, Griitz- 
ner, Berger, Schneider, Preyer, Weinhold, and others. But no one 
has contributed so much to the scientific, explanation of this matter- 
and by his authority sanctioned so many of these experiments as 
entitled to scientific value, as Prof. Charcot, the famous neurologist of 
La Salpetriere in Paris. So early as 1878, he commenced his strictly 
scientific investigations of the effects of hypnotism on hysterics ; of the 
purely physical phenomena ; of the different stages, the lethargic, the 
cataleptic, and the somnambulic, besides intermediate mixed stages. 
From time to time these experiments were published, partly in public 
lectures before physicians from all over the world, partly in journals ; 
and a number of pupils, who had taken part in the investigations or 
made such for themselves, have treated this subject so extensively in a 
number of pamphlets, that now it is coming to be ranked among the 
best-ascertained data of neuropathology./ Another school, w T hich in 
many points differs from that of Charcot, is the school of Nancy, w T ith 
Bernheim, Liebault, Beaunis and others at the head. These scientists 
have paid special attention to the practical use of hypnotism, partly as 
a means of curing disease, partly as an educational agency ; they have 
also pointed ouc its great importance in medical jurisprudence. 

Among other recent French authors on the subject may be men- 
tioned Paul Richer, Charles Richet, Azam, Regnard, David, Dumont- 
pallier, Cullerre, Barety, Perronet, Fere, Gilles de la Tourette, Bottey, 
Pitre, and Ochorowicz, a Pole ; among English authors Hack Tuke ; 
among Italians, Sepilli, Tamburini and Maggiorani ; among Germans, 
Obersteiner and Gessmann. 

Since July 1886, hypnotism also has had its own scientific jour- 
nal, La Revue de V Hypnotisme, published monthly in Paris, /with. 
Dr. E. Byrillon as chief editor and with such collaborateurs as Char- 
cot, Luys, Voisin, Ladame, Hack Tuke, Ireland, and others. 



CHAPTER TT 



IB, n. 



DEFINITION OF HYPNOTISM* SUSCEPTI3ILITY TO HYPNOTISM. 

YP NOTISM (fro m the Greek word hypnos, sleep) is the science 
"cTthe jsleep-like s tate {fmjpnos) — nearly corresponding to the 
older exp rjesjio^^agn^tic-^leep — which manifests itself by various 
nervous phenomena, and is produced, in certain persons susceptible of 
it, generally by some special influence on the nervous system exerted 



12 HYPNOTISM. 

by another, but also, though more rarely, by spontaneous action (spon- 
taneous hypnotism; idiohypnotism). To throw anybody into such 
a state is to hypnotize him. The sleeper is hypnotized ; is in hypnosis 
— in the hypnotic state. To waken anybody from hypnotism is to 
dehypnotize him. 

We first turn to the question: what persons are susceptible of 
hypnotism ? 

Formerly it was supposed that only weak, sickly, nervous persons 
and especially hysterical women were susceptible to hypnotism. Later 
experiences, and particularly the elaborate statistics of Liebault, of 
Nancy, have shown that almost anybody can be hypnotized. A differ- 
ence, however, must be made between those whom it is easy and those 
whom it is difficult to hypnotize. Among the former belong without 
doubt the hysteric ; but otherwise physical weakness gives no special 
predisposition. The willingness of the subject, his passivity, and power 
to concentrate the thought or attention on the intended sleep have 
more importance. Thus it has been found that even the strongest 
men from the lower classes (mechanics, laborers, soldiers), are more 
easily put to sleep than intelligent persons, who voluntarily or involun- 
tarily, let their thought wander to various objects which distract the 
attention. It will often be found that those who cannot be hypnotized 
in the first, second, or third seance, yet succumb to renewed patient 
efforts. 

Age is of consequence, inasmuch as it is always easier to hypnotize 
young persons, especially from seven to twenty-one years. This has 
long been known, and it was on this account that the ancient Egyp- 
tian, Greek, and Roman priests and the Indian yogis preferred to em- 
ploy children and young persons for their mystic ceremonies. 

Out of 744 persons of different ages, who were tested by Liebault 
in one year, he succeeded in throwing 682 into a more or less deep hyp- 
notic state, so that only 62 proved entirely insusceptible, and among 
these none under fourteen years of age. 

Neither does sex make such a difference in favor of women, as is 
generally supposed. The fact that hysteria is almost peculiar to the 
female sex certainly increases the ratio of susceptibility to hypnotization 
among women, but not so much as might be supposed. Out of 
Liebault's 287 men and 468 women, 31 of each sex proved insusceptible 
to hypnotism, which gives 10.8 percent of men and 6.6 per cent of 
women ; thus the difference is not great. 

Climate seems to have the effect of making hypnotization much 
easier in warm and southern countries than in cold and northern. 
Thus the French show a far greater susceptibility, than the Scandina- 
vians and Germans. In the tropics hypnosis is said to appear rapidly 
and to become very deep. 

Moreover a number of lesser circumstances are considered as hav- 



HYPNOTISM. 13 

ing a favorable or a disturbing effect. Thus the sleep is hindered by 
every distracting noise, by a recently taken meal, by mental emotions, 
by too much heat or cold in the room, by strong light, by damp atmos- 
phere, by_alc.oliolic ..liquors, coffee, tea, and sundry other causes. On 
the other hand, the sleep is promoted by quiet and rest, both internal 
and external, by twilight, darkness, soft music, fragrant flowers, etc. 
The oftener a person is hypnotized, the sooner and more easily will he 
fall asleep. Medium intelligence seems also to be favorable, for the 
reasons mentioned abov r e. On the other hand, it is impossible to hyp- 
notize idiots and very difficult to do so with the insane ; but if it suc- 
ceeds at all with the latter, they, can be cured through suggestion, as 
Yoisin has showm^ 

Baron Reichenbach, who has written an extensive work upon " odic 
force " and the human sensitivity, enumerates a number of signs of sus- 
ceptibility in this respect ; but as yet they have not been sufficiently 
submitted to scientific criticism. 

In order to decide rapidly and easily the question of a person's sus- 
ceptibility to hypnotism, special instruments of investigation — hypno- 
scopes, so called — have been invented. The first was constructed a 
couple of years ago by Dr. Ochorowicz, the Polish physician of Paris, 
and consists simply of a grooved magnet, which was put on the index 
finger of the person who was to be examined. If this person within a 
few minutes experienced some strange sensation in the finger, as of 
heat or cold, formication, prickling, or twitching in the hand, or swell- 
ing of the finger, this proved that he was easy to hypnotize. With this 
instrument about 30 per cent, of those examined proved susceptible to 
hypnotism. But it was found by Obersteiner and others, that also 
those who did not show any sensitiveness to the hypnoscope were easy 
to hypnotize, and that, on the whole, only the hysteric, who are gen- 
erally sensitive to metals and magnets, were sensitive also to the 
hypnoscope. After this, the value of the instrument as a ''medium- 
tester " became more than doubtful. 

From several magnets combined von Hellenbach and Gessmann in 
Vienna constructed considerably stronger hypnoscopes, through which 
66 per cent, of those examinad showed the above mentioned sensitive- 
ness; moreover, some who were used to being hypnotized fell into 
hypnotic sleep by the mere effect of the hypnoscope. Nevertheless 
Gessmann considers hypnoscopes more valuable for investigating the 
effects of magnets on the organism, than as standards or reagents of 
hypnotism. 



14 HYPNOTISM. 

CHAPTER III. 

MEANS OR METHODS OF HYPNOTIZING. 

HYPNOTIC sleep can be produced in various ways, by various 
means ("hypnogenic processes"). Almost every magnetizer 
has had his special method, and they have all succeeded in a measure. 
According to Bernheim the nature of the external means is of little 
importance, as long as it impresses the imagination or fancy of the 
one hypnotized, and conveys to him the idea that he will go to sleep. 
According to this theory all hypnosis would depend upon a "sugges- 
tion," a transmitted conception, and thus no one could be hypnotized 
against hi 3 own free will, or unless he were fully conscious of the in- 
tended sleep. It certainly is true that a conscious and willing co-op- 
eration promotes the sleep, but a number of cases are on record where 
the sleep appears even unexpectedly, unconsciously and against one's 
will. This is especially the case with the hypnotizing of animals. In 
childhood many of us have doubtless amused ourselves by hypnotizing 
a crawfish, which is easily done by supporting its head and claws and 
softly rubbing its bent tail, when for many minutes afterward it re- 
mains motionless in full hypnosis. The experiment of Father Kircher. 
in 1646, with the hen that lies motionless on the ground if a long line 
is chalked from her bill, has often been repeated. To the same class 
of phenomena belongs all kinds of charming by the eyes or fascination, 
as when the snake-charmer by his eye tames serpents, or when snakes 
paralyze frogs ; as also the art of Rarey, the famous horse-tamer, which 
appears to have consisted principally in hypnotic manipulations. 
/""The various hypnogenic processes which have been used up to 
/ this time may be classified in two large principal groups, physical and 
psychical. The first includes such as affect the nervous system, espe- 
cially the sensory nerves, by causing a state of fatigue or relaxation in 
certain senses, partly by producing a certain inhibitory condition of the 
brain. The second act principally by suggestion of which more will be 
said later on. Among the first, those that affect the sense of sight seem 
to be the most powerful. To these belong the fixing of the eyes on 
some shining object and also the steady gazing of the subject at the 
eyes of the hypnotizer ; or following with the eyes the customary mag- 
netic strokings; or the effect of suddenly lighted flame such as a mag- 
nesia-light, an electric spark, or exploding gunpowder. Even the 
staring at one's own image in a looking glass may produce hypnosis. 
Thus Duniontpallier tells of a woman, who, when combing her hair 
before a mirror — in which she must have surveyed herself rather 
intently — fell into catalepsy and remained motionless, with both hands 
over her head in the attitude of combing, until D. awakened her by 
staring at the reflection of her eyes in the glass. 




HYPNOTISM. 15 

A sudden affection of the sense of hearing, a blow on a gong for 
instance, often causes an equally sudden sleep (catalepsy), especially 
in hysterical persons who are accustomed to this way of being hypno- 
tized. A laughable occurrence of this kind in La Salpetriere in Paris 
is related by Eicher. An hysterical woman was suspected by the 
physicians of stealing photographs from the laboratory of the hospital, 
but she repelled the accusation with scorn. One morning, however, 
Richer found her standing with her hand outstretched in the box of 
photographs. He approached; she did not move. At the moment 
of her reaching for the photographs a gong had been sounded in an 
adjoining room in order to hypnotize another patient, and immediately 
she had fallen into a hypnotico cataleptic state. 

The best notion of the means of hypnogenic processes will be 
gained from a description of the different methods that have hitherto 
been used by the mos.t prominent magnetizers and hypnotizers. 

Mesmer sat down down opposite the person who was to be mesmer- 
ized, grasped his hands, and stared at his eyes. After ten or fifteen 
minutes he let go his hold and made strokings with his hands at a dis^ 
tance of a few centimetres from the body of the medium, from the top 
of the head slowly downward, letting the tips of his fingers remain for 
a few moments on the eyes, the chest, the pit of the stomach and the 
knees. This was repeated ten or fifteen times ; if any effect appeared 
the seance was continued ; if not, the experiment was not renewed un- 
til another day. Bot as time did not allow the magnetizing of each per- 
son separately, and Mesmer besides maintained that the magnetic fluid 
could also be stored in various objects, he soon resorted to the more 
convenient method of magnetizing indirectly, through magnetized 
tables, " baquets," trees, flowers, magnetized water, etc. Real mediums 
must feel a difference between magnetized water and ordinary water. 
Through the former they fall asleep, through the latter they do not. 

The Indian magnetizers, of whom Dr. Esdaile of Calcutta made 
use in 1840 — 1850, proceeded thus: the medium, partly undressed, was 
put to bed on his back in a dark hall. The magnetizer placed himself 
at the head of the bed, leaned over the medium, bringing his face 
almost in contact with the latter's, stared at his eyes. One hand 
rested on the pit of the medium's stomach, the other made strokings, 
principally over the eyes. Moreover, he blew softly and frequently 
into the nose, between the lips and on the eyeballs. The deepest 
silence prevailed during the entire proceeding. 

Others use only the method of fixing each other's eyes — as Teste 
and Cullerre. 

Braids method, widely known and used, consists in letting the 

3dium stare at a shining object, a glass knob or some such thing, 

which is held a couple of inches above the root of the nose, so that the 

they are obliged to take a position that makes them converge strongly 



16 HYPNOTISM. 

upward, by which the muscles of the eyes get tired or the optic nerve 
becomes over-irritated. Also it is of importance to concentrate the 
attention upon the thought, that sleep may follow. This method 
easily causes tears and headache. It was used a great deal by the 
Danish magnetizer Hansen. In ancient times, staring at mirrors, at 
the glistening surface of water &c. was used. 

The priest Farids method belongs among the purely psychical. 
It consisted in suddenly frightening the inattentive into sleep. He 
used to rise suddenly, stretch his hands toward those who were to be 
hypnotized, and to cry out in a stern, commanding voice : " Sleep ! " 
if four such attempts proved unsuccessful, the subject was declared to 
be insusceptible. This simple and convenient method, however, seldom 
succeeds, and when it does, it rarely causes any deep sleep and must 
be supported by other methods. 

Lasegue has subdued refractory mediums by closing their eyelids 
with his fingers and by gently pressing on their eyeballs. 

Charcot's school at La Salpetiere has modified the Braid method, by 
placing pieces of glass close to the bridge of the nose, by which pro- 
cedure the convergency of the eyes is increased and sleep comes more 
rapidly. A blow on a gong or a pressure on some "hypnogenic or 
hysterogenic " zone — such as an ovary, the top of the head, etc. — or the 
appoaching of a magnet will act on hysterical women. 

Gessman of Vienna describes* his method in extenso thus : 

'"I choose out of the company a woman having a pale and nervous 
appearance and dreary eyes ; I tell her that there is in my organism a 
strong evolution of electricity, which enables me to electrize persons 
who are not too robust. As a proof of this, I let her with both hands 
seize two fingers of my right hand, and after a few seconds, I ask 
whether she feels anything. If she is susceptible to hypnotism, she 
usually answers that she feels a crawling sensation, and later a 
numbness of the arms and upper part of the body. Then I say : k Hold 
my hand tight — tighter — tighter still — well ! Now you cannot let go 
my hand ! ' And the fact is that she can not. By strokings of my left 
hand along her arms the muscular spasm increases, so that she can not 
let my hand go even when asked to do so. Blowing on the hands and 
telling her that she is free immediately stop the spasm. 

"By this preliminary test I get a sure proof that the person is 
susceptible to actual hypnotization, which is produced thus: I sit 
down opposite her, make her close her eyes, take her hands in mine so 
that the four thumbs are pressed against each other, tell her to be 
quiet, and to yield unresistingly to the first inclination to sleep. When 
she has fallen asleep — generally within ten or twenty minutes — I 
increase the sleep by some strokings over her head an^ chest, and try 
to induce her to talk ; this I easily achieve by placing one hand on her 

*Gr. Gessman, Maguetisruus unci Hypnotismus. Vienna 1887. 



HYPNOTISM. 17 

head and taking one of her hands in my other hand, while I — speaking 
towards the pit of her stomach — ask: 'Do you hear me?' which ques- 
tion must often be repeated four or five times, before -I receive a very 
weak answer. Now is the time to make further experiments. At the 
first attempt, however, one should stop here, so as not to tire the 
the patient. After twenty minutes, at most, she should be wakened, — 
which is done by the simple command: 'Awake!' Yet she may first be 
asked if she feels well, and be assured that after awaking she will feel 
entirely healthy and normal. If she herself prescribes some way in 
which she desires to be wakened, her wish should be heeded. If a 
simple order does not succeed in waking her, you may blow in her face, 
or make reverse strokings, but violent means, such as vigorous shak- 
ing, sprinkling with water, etc. should never be used; nor should 
strange persons be allowed to come in contact with her. If she still 
does not awake, she may be allowed to sleep for ten or twenty minutes 
more, provided pulse and respiration do not give cause for apprehen- 
tion. Generally she awakes within that time cf her own accord.'" 

Thus we find that hypnosis can be produced in the most widely 
differing ways, and it can be said with Richer, that all methods lead to 
the desired aim, provided you find a well predisposed organism ; for 
the oftener a person is hypnotized, the more easily will the sleep be 
reproduced. A review of the difierent methods shows that among the 
physical methods that affect the senses, those which act upon 
vision, hearing and sensation are the most powerful but that the senses 
of taste and smell may also be used. The sense of sight is affected 
either by rapid and strong irritation, as by a ray of light thrown into 
the eye from the sun, from a magnesium lamp, from an electric light, 
or by slow and weak irritation as by staring at a dazzling object, at 
the eyes of the hypnotizer, etc. The sense of hearing is irritated either 
suddenly and vigorously by a gong, tomtom, tuning fork, or slowly 
and gently by the monotonous ticking of a watch or by other unvaried 
sounds. We remember how natural sleep is promoted by monotonous 
songs, such as cradle-songs, dull sermons, etc. The sense of touch is 
irritated by rapid, strong pressure upon the ovary or other particularly 
sensitive spots — hypnogenic zones so-called — or by gentle pinching, 
heat, magnets, etc. That heat is a hypnogenic agent was shown 
by Berger, who succeeded in hypnotizing, when he held a heated 
metal or his warm hand in the neighborhood of the patient's head, 
but he did not succeed when the hand or the head was covered, so that 
the radiation of heat was prevented. Binet and Fere have succeeded in 
producing lethargic sleep by exhausting the sense of smell by musk. 
To act upon the sense of taste has been tried less, but it has sometimes 
succeeded. 

Without directly stimulating the senses of sight or hearing hpyno- 
sis may be produced by mere pressure on the eye or ear — as when 



18 HYP NO TISM. 



the finger presses on the eyeball through the closed eyelids, or on the 
external auditory canal. Whether, as has been supposed, the nerves 
of the eye or ear arj affected or tired hereby, is hard to decide. 

The strokings, or "passes," so much affected by magnetizers, have 
perhaps a direct physical effect on the sense of feeling, when they 
touch the skin ; but when they are made at a distance, their influence 
on vision and their purely psychical effects probably play the princi- 
pal role. In modern times, it has been discovered that efficacious 
excitation, of the skin may be made with a feather or any inert body, 
just as well as with the hand. Some parts of the body, however, are 
especially sensitive — as the top of the head, the forehead, the- ovarian 
regions, the root of the thumb, the joints, etc. — spots which have been 
described by Pi tres as "hypnogenic zones." Hypnotizing by a mag- 
net shows that the excitation, need not be consciously conceived in 
order to be efficacious. 

All these physical hypnogenic processes have very different effects 
on different individuals ; some persons are more easily influenced by one, 
others by another ; a combination of several processes is often more 
efficacious than one alone. Though these physical processes act inde- 
pendently of the personality of the hypnotizer, who thus is not of so 
great inrportance as was claimed by the earlier magnetizers, yet it will 
be found that some hypnotizers succeed better than others, which 
fact must depend upon the great importance of the psychical influ 
ence in hypnotizing. For hypnosis is caused not only by the above- 
mentioned peripheral or sensorial excitations, but also by central 
excitation in the brain, by psychical action on the imagination, or by 
suggestion — as it is called in modern language. 

Faria's method, mentioned above, was of this kind. Milder and less 
terrifying methods of suggestion are used now, however. You say, for 
instance, to the one you wish to hypnotize, that he needs sleep ; that 
he will soon be asleep ; that he is feeling dull ; that his eyelids are 
closing; that he can no longer hear nor see ; or you yourself pretend to 
be sleepy or asleep. This method is especially successful with those 
who have been hypnotized before in other ways, or those who are 
desirous of falling asleep in order to go through an operation or some- 
thing similar, or who have implicit faith in the skill of the hypnotizer. 
It is by this method that hypnotism can be caused from a long distance 
and after a long time. Injjsuch cases there is no magnetic fluid that is 
transmitted from the magnetizer who acts from a distance, but it is the 
fixed idea of the patient, that he is just then put to sleep, which pro- 
duces the sleep. But he must previously have been notified oi the 
day and moment of his going to sleep, either by agreement, that he, 
though at a distance, shall be hypnotized just at that time; or by the 
order, during a previous hypnosis that just then he shall gc tc sleep 
again : , in the latter case the patient need not remember this ordei 
while he is awake. 



HYPNOTISM. 19 

The effect of magnetized water, magnetized trees, letters, and 
other objects, so wonderful in by-gone days, is easily explained in the 
same manner. Without a confirmed idea of the power they are to 
possess, they produce no effect. But we shall have occasion to develop 
this interesting subject further, when we come to discuss the 
psychical effects of hypnotism. • Often, however, it is quite difficult 
clearly to decide how great a part the psychical and physical agents 
have in producing hypnosis. Generally, however, it may be safely said 
that although suggestion, or the psychical momentum, does not alone 
dominate the hypnotism, yet it is usually of greater importance than 
was formerly supposed. But on the other hand, it may be men- 
tioned as a sure proof that hypnotic sleep can be produced even 
without a more or less conscious co-operation, that hypnosis may also 
be successfully produced in a person who is in a deep natural sleep, 
simply by pressure on his eyelids. 

Finally, it should be remembered that the fixed idea can be 
directed not only to cause sleep, but equally well to prevent and 
oppose the sleep. If anybody firmly makes up his mind not to be put 
to sleep at such a time, in such a manner, or by such a person, the 
experiments generally fail, even if they have succeeded ever so well 
before, when the patient was willing and prepared. 

The methods of awaking the subject from the hypnotic state or 
of dehypnotizing are also many and varied. Moreover, these can be 
divided into physical or peripherally acting and psychical or centrally 
acting. The simplest and most common method is to blow on the 
eyes or forehead. This may be done with a pair of bellows instead of 
with the mouth ; or a few drops of water may be dashed on the face. 
If this proves unsuccessful, the eyelids are raised and the blowing is 
made a little stronger straight into the eyes. If then awakening does 
not follow, pressure may be made (in hysterical women) on the ovarian 
region or on other hypnogenic zones. For by pressure on the same spot, 
many hysterical persons can be hypnotized when awake, and wakened 
when asleep. The same means seems to have opposite effects, depend- 
ing on the state of the persons. Blowing on only one half of the head, 
while the other half is separated by a screen, wakens only one half of 
the body. The subject is wakened psychically by the simple cry 
••Awake! " addressed to him. 



20 



HYPNOTISM. 



CHAPTER IV. 



STAGES OR DEGREES OF HYPNOTISM. 



r 



HE effects or symptoms of hypnotism are so many and so differ- 



hard to give a picture that shall correspond to all the hypnotized. It 
may generally be said that hypnotism causes changes within the limits 
of both the physical and the psychical life, often of so strange a kind 
as to border on the wonderful. In order to reduce to something like 
system the complicated phenomena producable by hypnotism, some 
authors have divided the hypnotic sleep into certain stages or degrees 
of intensity, while others have classified the symptoms into certain 
main groups. 

Among the former may be mentioned Kluge (Berlin, 1811) who 
/ gives no less than seven degrees : 1, Waking: the sensory organs are 
still in full activity, but the limbs have slightly increased functions. 
2, Half-sleep ; incomplete crisis ; feeling of heaviness in the eyes, which 
close ; but the patient can hear and is not yet asleep. 3, Magnetic 
sleep ; restful, deep, refreshing slumber, without memory on waking. 
4, Simple somnambulism ; talking and acting in the sleep under the 
influence of the magnetizer ; the " somniloque". and "crisoloque" of 
the French. 5, Clairvoyance, with increased interior consciousness. 
6, Ecstacy ; far-seeing in time and space ; conception of past, present 
and future events, which is otherwise lacking in the ordinary con- 
scious state. 7, Trance. 

This classification was also approved by the great practical phy- 
sician, Hufeland, with the exception of the 7th degree. 

Eschenmayer (1816) adopted only four degrees, based on the 
psychological classification of the mental faculties, as perception, 
imagination, sensation and fantasy: 1, Magnetic perception / removing 
the senses to the pit of the stomach or to the finger-tips and toes ;. 
penetration of the condition of other persons , increased internal 
instinct. 2, Magnetic clairvoyance; 3, Magnetic sympathy with the 
magnetizer ; and 4, Magnetic divination. 

While these magnetic systems prevailed in Germany, the French 
generally favored that which was started by Lausanne (Paris, 1818), 
and which was still richer in "degrees" — as many as twelve — of whicli 
the first eight were considered as merely " half-crises," and only the 
last four as real crises. These degrees were 1, Sensation of heat or 
cold. 2, Heaviness in head and limbs ; the eyes close. 3, The patient 
hears but cannot answer. 4, Light slumber ; the dreams are remem- 
bered. 5, Deep sleep. 6, Sweet and light sleep ; feeling of delight after 
it; 7, Apparent sleep; motionless body ; the somnambule hears and 
answers questions . 8, Dim perception of the disease ; sympathy and 



HYPNOTISM, 21 

antipathy for different persons. 9, Clairvoyance of his own body ; 
self-prescription ; cure predicted. 10, Incomplete clairvoyance of other 
persons' bodies. 11, Complete clairvoyance of other persons' bodies; 
remedies ordered and cure predicted. 12, Far-seeing and prediction. 

The system shows on how low a level the scientific elaboration 
and explanation of magnetism still remained. 

Another system, " so symmetrical that it can be drawn in three 
connecting ellipses of unequal length,'" (!) was devised in 1826 by the 
famous German psychiater Kieser. He classified the pheoomena as 
belonging to the falling asleep and to the awakening, and he made 
either pass through one vegetative, one animal, and one sensitive stage, 
from which six different stages arose. 

Ennemoser (1852) was the first who made the very essential 
difference between physical and psychical phenomena. 

Finally, if we turn to the hypnotic systems which prevail to-day, 
that adopted by Charcot and the Salpetriere school occupies the first 
place. But as this is based principally on experiments on hysterical 
women, the system adopted by Liebault and the school of Nancy 
would perhaps be of more general importance. 

Charcot accepts three main stages : 1, The cataleptic, 2, The 
lethargic; and 3, the somnambulistic stage. In the description of the*e 
stages or phases, we follow Dr. Paul Richer, Charcot's pupil, who exten- 
sively treats this in his great work on hysteria.* 

The cataleptic state occurs primarily under the influence of an in- 
tense and unexpected noise, a strong light placed under the eyes, or 
by staring at Some object according to Braid's method. Concentration 
of the attention, of the imagination, or even of a moral impression, 
may also produce catalepsy. Besides it develops from the lethargic 
state if the already-closed eyes are suddenly exposed to rays of light, 
by the raising of the eyelids. On the inhaling of ether or chloroform, 
a transient cataleptic state sometimes occurs before the narcotic stage. 
Even in healthy persons a passing catalepsy sometimes takes place 
under the influence of a sudden emotion (fear, wrath, etc.). A sud- 
denly frightened person may become motionless as a statue, stiff and 
rigid, without feeling, and with hands and arms fixed in some express- 
ive posture. Either by reason of the noise or through fright, a peal of 
thunder sometimes has the same effect as the striking of a gong. Even 
the faculty of speech may in this way be lost for one or more (Jays. 

The cataleptic stage comes on slowly or suddenly, the former 
generally by the use of Braid's method, which often can not even 
produce this stage, but will instead cause the lethargic one. If, how- 
ever, it is desirable to try this method, the staring at the object should 
suddenly be interrupted, shortly before the occurrence of the lethargic 
stage, when the cataleptic stage will appear instead. Yet a certain 

*P. Richer, Etudes cliniques sur ]a grande hysteric on hystero-epilepsie. Paris, 1885. 



22 HYPNOTISM. 

co-operation of the will of the one hypnotized is here needed, contrary 
to the sudden causing of catalepsy by other methods — as by an electric 
spark, or a blow on a gong — when the catalepsy occurs quite involun- 
tarily. Those hypnotized in this way remain motionless in the same 
place and position they occupied when the sudden noise or other 
hypnotizing influence befell. Generally a certain fear is expressed in 
their faces. 

The characteristic feature of catalepsy is the immobility, the 
statue-like attitude. The eyes are open and staring ; the tears accu- 
mulate and run over from want of motion in the eyelids ; respiration 
has almost ceased. Without apparent fatigue, the limbs retain the 
most difficult positions in which they are placed, but make no resistance 
to change of attitude. Muscular reflex-action is absent, as also the 
increased nervous irritability of the muscles, characteristic of the 
lethargic state. By mechanical irritation of muscles and nerves 
contraction is not produced, but rather a loss of elasticity. The skin 
is insensible to the strongest irritation, but certain senses — such as the 
muscular sense, vision, and especially hearing — partly at least retain 
their activity, by which they are susceptible to suggestion. A commu- 
nicated position produces ideas in the brain corresponding to the 
attitude; it also produces mimic expressions and motions in the same 
direction. So, for instance, if the fingers of the cataleptic person are 
placed on his mouth in kissing position, a smile will appear on his lips. 

Catalepsy ceases, either by return to normal condition or by 
changing into lethargy. A slight irritation, — such as blowing in the 
face, or pressing on the ovaries in hysterical persons — is enough to 
awaken the cataleptic. At once the subject returns to the real world. 
The closing of the eyelids or the softening of the light will, on the 
contrary, transfer them to the lethargic state. If only one eye is 
closed, while light enters the open one, the lethargy occurs in only the 
half of the body corresponding to the closed eye, while the other half 
remains cataleptic. We shall return later to these very interesting, 
one-sided hypnotic phenomena, which prove a certain independence of 
the separate halves of the brain. 



The lethargic state can be primarily produced by staring, or by 
continuous gentle pressure upon the eye-balls through the lowered 
upper eyelids. The time required to produce this phenomenon varies 
in different individuals, and decreases gradually by practice from ten 
or fifteen minutes to a few seconds, but the lethargic state can never 
be so suddenly caused as the cataleptic can sometimes be. As before 
mentioned, the former state may also arise by transmission from the 
last-named by a simple closing of the eyelids or from the somnam- 
bulistic state by pressure on the closed eyelids. The lethargic state 
is often preceded by some epileptic phenomena, such as motions of 



HYPNOTISM. 23 

swallowing, guttural sounds, asthmatic respiration, foaming mouth, or 
rigidity of the limbs. The principal characteristics of lethargy are : 
complete insensibility of the skin and mucous membranes, increased 
irritability of the motor nerves, and as a rule, insusceptibility to sug- 
gestion or imparted hallucination. The eyes remain closed or half- 
closed, turned upward and inward, the eye-lids generally trembling. 
The body is perfectly relaxed, the limbs are lax and pendent, and fall 
heavily back, if lifted and then released ; respiration is deep and quick- 
ened. The spinal cord is in an over-excited state and the reflex action 
of the tendons increased, that is, the corresponding muscle, or some- 
times even others, will contract by percussion or stroking on its ten- 
don. The muscle can also be excited directly. The contractions, thus 
easily caused, often remain until they are released by excitation of the 
antagonist muscles. By opening one or both eyes, the lethargic state 
can be immediately tranf erred to the cataleptic state in one or both 
sides. 



The somnambulistic state — psychologically the most interesting — 
is produced either primarily by staring or other ordinary methods of 
hypnotizing, or secondarily from the cataleptic or lethargic state by a 
gentle pressure or friction of the hand on the cranium, sometimes 
also spontaneously. It is the somnambulistic state that is generally 
produced by magnetizers, and by all the methods which act upon the 
imagination. 

The somnambulistic state is characterized by the same insensibility 
to pain, of the skin and mucous membranes, as in the lethargic state, 
but the senses are often quickened to a high degree; the muscular 
irritability is normal ; there is no increased sensitiveness as during 
lethargy ; by excitation of the cutaneous nerves muscular contraction 
is caused, which, however, does not change into lasting contraction 
— contrary to the lethargic state, where contraction is caused only 
by excitation that reaches through the skin to a muscle, nerve, of 
tendon. The eyes are generally closed, but may also be half or wholly 
open, yet without winking of the eyelids. 

Pressure on the eyelids immediately causes lethargy; pressure 
on the eye produces hemi-lethargy of the corresponding half of the 
body, while the other half remains semi-somnambulistic. 

The mental faculties of the somnambulist are highly sharpened; he 
answers questions and is easily led through the most varied sugges- 
tions. There is hardly any limit to what can be produced by sug- 
gestion, and the actions of the somnambule often border on the 
marvelous. The "automatism" (unconscious spontaneity) of the 
somnambulist differs from that of the cataleptic. The latter is a mere 
automaton, a machine, acting without consciousness, without aim, 
blindly obeying external sensorial impression. The somnambulist, on 



24 HYPNOTISM. 

the contrary, is a subject, a personality, who acts spontaneously, by 
his own impulse, or obeying the will of the operator, yet with a certain 
independence, a certain consciousness peculiar, however, to the new 
somnambulistic personality, and which does not return to memory 
with the wakeful condition. Thus there is a somnambulistic ego, but 
no cataleptic ego. An example is necessary,' however, to explain this 
fine distinction. On a table before a patient in the cataleptic state, 
are placed a picher of water, a washbowl, and soap. As soon as these 
objects are seen or touched, he immediately begins to pour out water 
in the bowl and to wash himself with great care ; if a towel is given 
him, ne wipes himself carefully. If pressure is made on the top of 
his head, he is immediately changed from a cataleptic automaton to a 
somnambulist ; he immediately ceases to work and asks in astonish- 
ment: "What am I doing? I certainly do not need to wash my 
hands ! " But now it is only necessary to raise his eyelids to bring 
him back instantly to the cataleptic automatism, and without objection, 
without reasoning, he will renew his continuous washing. If now his 
right eye be closed, his right hand will drop inactive, and the washing 
will be continued with the left hand alone ; he is now hemi-lethargic, 
that is, in his right side. If then, his left eye be closed, the left 
hand will also drop ; all washing ceases, and he is wholly lethargic. 
In the cataleptic state, he can in the same way be made to roll a 
cigarette, to light it, to smoke it; but care should be taken lest he 
burn himself, for he is entirely insensible to pain. 

The hypnotic phenomena, however, do not always appear as regu- 
larly and decidedly, as in the stages defined by Charcot, now briefly 
described; nor in the order in which they have been set forth. There 
are numerous transitory and mixed stages, and many observers (Mag- 
nin etc.) have found the order reversed, so that the hypnotized first 
enter into the somnambulistic state and afterward into the lethargic 
and cataleptic stages. As habit here plays an important role, they 
may depend upon a certain training, and upon the order in which the 
hypnotism takes place. We must therefore remember that Charcot's 
system is to be understood merely as a general outline, from which 
there are many variations. 

The school of Nancy does not cling so vigorously to the difference 
between the three stages ; they divide the hypnosis into several de- 
grees from the lightest to the deepest sleep ; attribute more importance 
to suggestion ; and have shown that hypnosis can be produced, not 
only in hysterical women, but also in healthy persons, both men and 
women. Finally, they have very clearly set forth the great practical 
significance of hypnotism. 



I 



HYPNOTISM. 



25 



Below is given a synopsis, made by the Italians, Tamburini and 
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HYPNOTISM. 







A CLASS of phenomena that we have hitherto but lightly touched, 
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sided hypnotism, also called tmilateral hypnotism, and consisting of 



26 HYPNOTISM. 

the development of hypnotism in only one half of the body, or of 
different forms or degrees in opposite sides. 

It is well known how the nerves of each half of the body cross 
each other in the medulla oblongata and run to the opposite hemis- 
phere of the brain. Thus each half of the brain governs its separate 
half of the body — the opposite — with a certain independence ; through 
the transverse commissural fibres there is also, however, a connection 
between the two sides of the brain. By various processes that act 
especially on the nerves of one half of the body, one side of the brain 
and the corresponding half of the body may be hypnotized. 

Braid succeeded in awakening only one half of the body by affect- 
ing one eye. Heidenhain produced hemi-lethargy, or lethargy in one 
side, by friction upon one side of the head, and when the friction was 
applied to the left side, he also produced aphasia or loss of speech, as 
the speech-centre is situated in the left temporal lobe of the brain. 
Berger found that friction of the region of the neck on one side of the 
head caused catalepsy of the same side, while friction of the temporal 
region produced catalepsy of the opposite side. By one-sided friction 
of the head Ladam-e succeeded in producing color-blindness of the eye 
of the same side, while the other eye distinguished the colors normally. 
Duniontpallier has caused one-sided hypnotic phenomena in hysterical 
persons and afterward travisferred the phenomena to the opposite side 
through "transferrers" so-called, that is; by the application of metals 
or magnets. 

Furthermore, different states or stages of hypnotism have been 
produced at one time in the two halves of the "body. This is often 
done in Charcot's clinic, where it was first exhibited by Descourtis in 
1878. It is only necessary to open one eye so that light strikes the 
retina of one who is in a state of general lethargy, and he will immedi- 
ately beccme cataleptic in the corresponding side, while he remains 
lethargic in the other. On the other hand hemi-lethargy may be 
produced in a cataleptic individual by the closing of one of his eyes. 

By approaching a ticking watch to one of the ears of a hysterical 
woman, Dumontpallier caused hemi-catalepsy of that side, and at the 
same time hemi-lethargy of the opposite side, whereas general catalepsy 
appeared when he placed a watch at each ear. Hemi-lethargy can also 
be produced by the inhalation of ether through only one nostril. 

Finally, hemi-lethargy and semi-somnambulism have also been 
produced at one time, as have also hemi-catalepsy and semi- 
somnambulism. 

But even the same hypnotic state may at the same time show a 
different degree or character in different sides, especially when the 
separate halves of the brain are given separate impressions and ideas 
by suggestion. Here is an instance : 

A girl is put into a cataleptic state. Her left hand is placed in a 



HYPNOTISM. 27 

position corresponding to that of throwing a kiss ; she now smiles with 
the left half of the face. While the left side continues to keep this 
position and expression, her right hand is given a posture of aversion, 
and the right half of the face will immediately assume an expression of 
fear and horror, while the left half of the face continues to simper with 
satisfaction. Strange as it may seem, this phenomenon, which shows 
the independence of the brain-halves relatively to each other, is how- 
ever, at the present standpoint of brain-ptrysiology, quite easy to 
explain. 

Every muscular action is conceived by the opposite half of the 
brain through the sensory nerves which go to it. Every oft-repeated 
ordinary combination of muscular actions and positions produces 
corresponding impressions of memory on the brain-cells ; through this, 
the moods and ideas are caused which are generally connected with 
those movements. By reflex action and association, movements and 
positions are completed, so that, for instance, the mimicry of the face 
harmonizes with the posture of the hand. During hypnotic sleep the 
wakeful consciousness is absent, which comprehends the ego as a unit, 
that, so to speak, joins the two halves of the brain together into one 
combined whole. Each hemisphere works automatically for itself, and 
the direct, involuntary reflex movements are absolute masters of the 
situation. 

These ideas, illusions, hallucinations, etc. can be imparted to the 
separate hemispheres, not only through the muscular sense but also 
through all the other senses, and usually through suggestion, about 
which more will be said in a special chapter. For instance, give a 
hysterical individual, • in the somnambulistic stage, a few drops of 
water on one side of her tongue and tell her that it is vinegar ; then, 
let some drops of the same water fall on the other side of her tongue, 
and tell her that it is molasses, and she will express astonishment at, 
feeling a sweet and a sour taste in her mouth at the same time, and 
usually one half of the face will show discontent and the other satis- 
faction. In the same way double illusions can be produced with the 
sense of smell. So also with hearing. To one ear something pleasant 
may be told, to the other something unpleasant ; the different halluci- 
nations of hearing produce reverse expressions in the tw r o halves of the 
face. While one ear is acted upon, the other should be covered. If 
different pictures are exhibited to the two eyes, while their circles of 
vision are separated by a partition , double hallucinations will arise 
with corresponding double facial expression. If now the individual be 
suddenly wakened, the two halves of the brain still continue for a 
while to act independently. The different hallucinations and the 
different facial expressions still continue ; and under the influence of 
the two opposite ideas the merriest laughter may rapidly alternate with 
shrieks of horror, just as on awaking from a dream the mood is 



28 HYPNO TISM. 

dependent on the contents of the dream, until the thoughts can be 
collected and the person has awaked by getting a perfectly clear 
conception of the facts of the wakeful state. 

Hence there is no doubt but that the separate hemispheres of the 
brain have each a separate and independent activity to a certain extent 
and under certain conditions, especially during hypnotic sleep. But 
the consequences should not be hence drawn that all the contrasts 
of mental life in the same individual are dependent on this ; for intance, 
that one hemisphere is the seat of man's better self, the other of his 
worse self ; one for the good instincts and thoughts, the other for the 
bad ones ; or that, in a criminal, one hemisphere should plan the crime 
while the other w r arns and condemns ; or that in an insane person who 
is conscious of his disease, only one half of the brain is deranged and 
the other half is aware of it. There is no such division of the ego, no 
double personality. The above-named contrasts within the mental life 
depend on a brain activity, differing more in time than in space ; they 
are successive utterances of the activity of the whole brain,. 




CHAPTER VI. 



PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF HYPNOTISM. 



HYPNOTISM extends its effects in different individuals and in 
different stages more or less to all the organs of man, not 
only to his organs of motion and sense but also to his brain and its 
functions, as well as to the vegetative functions of life : respiration, 
circulation, nutrition, etc. For a more convenient review of all these 
varied effects, we will now give special attention to the effects of 
hypnotism on each separate system of organs, and, postponing to a 
separate chapter its most remarkable effects — those pertaining to the 
higher mental life — we will now in this chapter, discuss the purely 
somatic or physical phenomena, as opposed to the psychical. 

The organs of locomotion. The muscular system shows a strik- 
ing sensitiveness to hypnotic influence, but, as has already been men- 
tioned, very differently in different stages, sometimes showing a 
relaxatior bordering on paralyzation, sometimes extreme irritability, 
disposition to contraction, spasm, tetanus, etc. The external signs 
of these different conditions of the muscles manifest themselves not 
only in the form and hardness of the muscles themselves but above 
all in the posture and mobility of the limbs, and with reference to 
the facial muscles in the mien and mimicry of the face. If the mus- 
cles are relaxed, as in the lethargic state, the body collapses like a 
rag, arms and legs lack control, give no support to the trunk, and the 
position of the body is entirety governed by the laws of gravitation 
and by the doings of others. The cataleptic state, on the other hand, 



HYPNOTISM. 29 

causes a certain semi-rigidity of muscles and limbs, besides an ab- 
normal endurance and passivity, so that the limbs can be bent like wax 
(flexibilitas cerea) and maintain the most tiresome and unnatural 
positions, far longer than in the normal state, so that the person 
resembles a doll of soft wax or gutta-percha, to which can be given 
any position desired. Such catelepsy is also found in certain severe 
forms of mental disease. 

Another hypnotic muscular anomaly is the general rigidity or teta- 
nus, which is sometimes produced by a mere breathing on the neck. 
By this a sudden and continuous contraction of all the muscles of the 
trunk and extremities arises, just as a frog poisoned by strychnia be- 
comes tetanized at the slightest touch. The whole body becomes 
rigid as a stick and the muscles as hard as stone. It is this experi- 
ment that is so much abused by professional magnetizers, who boast 
of their cruel trick of letting a tetanized person stay suspended be- 
tween a couple of chairs, with support for only the neck and feet, and 
of even sitting upon the unfortunate victim, to show the hardness 
of his tetanized muscles. Such experiments are so much the more 
dangerous in that the tetanus may also extend to the respiratory 
muscles and the heart, when life is endangered. Even very gentle 
attempts to tetanize one muscle or another by special friction may 
have dangerous results, as the tetanus sometimes shows an increasing- 
tendency to spread to other muscles or groups of muscles. Thus by 
merely rubbing the muscles of a student's left thumb, Heidenhain 
caused a successively appearing tetanus of the left thumb, left hand, 
left forearm, left upper arm and shoulder, right shoulder, and upper 
arm, right forearm, right hand, left lower leg, left thigh, right thigh, 
right lower leg, the masticatory muscles and the muscles of the neck. 
The general spasm was however at once dispersed by a blow on 
the arm or by bending the thumb that was turned in toward the 
hand. 

By pressure, percussion, friction, or in other words, by mechanical 
excitation, especially during the lethargic stage, partial contraction of 
the manipulated muscle may be successfully produced, which contrac- 
tion is again dispersed by excitation of the antagonist, that is, the 
muscle that acts in the opposite direction. In this way the most 
varied mimical expressions of joy, pain, fear, wrath, astonishment etc. 
may be produced by excitation of special muscles of the face. Accord- 
ing to the method of Duchenne, a small stick, round at the end, by 
which pressure is made on such points of nerves or muscles as have 
shown sensitiveness to faradic excitation, completely substitutes the 
electric current, during the lethargic state. According to Bicher, 
however, these experiments require much care and experience. If the 
pressure is too weak, only a slight trembling appears in the muscle ; 
if it is too strong, the excitation is communicated to more muscles 



30 HYPNOTISM. 

which contract at the same time. The muscles of the face are unlike 
those of the limbs, inasmuch as their contraction usually ceases as soon 
as the excitation ceases and does not become permanent. If a muscle, 
which has a corresponding muscle on the other side, be irritated, it 
will often happen that the "homologous" muscle is made to contract 
by excitation of the first one. A further description of how the 
physiognomy changes and assumes characteristic expressions for 
certain affections by excitation of certain muscles would be very 
interesting, but in order to be understood, it requires of the reader a 
special knowledge of the muscles of the face, which we do not dare to 
pre-suppose. 

The contractions which are produced in the muscles of the limbs 
have a great tendency to persist. This contraction is most easily 
relaxed by excitation of the antagonist muscles : thus, contraction of 
the flexors of a limb is removed by excitation of the corresponding 
extensors. But the contraction usually disappears of its own accord if 
the patient is wakened during the lethargic state. Sometimes, how- 
ever, the contraction remains on awaking, especially if the patient has 
previously been made cataleptic. These contractions, which greatly 
resemble the hysteric, can not then be stopped by anything but the 
excitation of the antagonist muscles, after the patient has again been 
hypnotized. 

During the somnambulistic stage contractions may also be pro- 
duced, yet more by excitation of the skin than by direct excitation of 
the tendons or nerves. These fine distinctions however will interest the 
reader less than will the perceptible changes that hypnotism causes in 
the sensitive organs — the general sense of touch in the skin as also the 
special organs of the senses. The conditions in this respect vary 
greatly in different individuals and in different stages. Sometimes 
increased sensibility is found, sometimes lessened ; sometimes sharpened 
senses, sometimes duller. A constant feature and one common to all 
hypnotic stages however is insensibility to pain {analgesia) from 
pricking, pinching, burning, etc., while the sensibility to touch may at 
the same time remain in the skin. During lethargy, all the senses are 
usually entirely inactive, except hearing, Avhich may sometimes be weak- 
ly active, especially when aided by a speaking-tube placed in the ear. 
Although the one who is thus addressed can not answer, a twitching 
or an increased respiration is often noticed. When asked if he can hear, 
he may assent by a nod but he cannot articulate a sound. If request- 
ed to speak, he will shrug his shoulders as a sign that it is impossible 
for him. If he is ordered to rise, he does not do so, or only slowly 
after long hesitation. When once risen, he stands staggering, with 
shaking legs, and cannot move a step. He is insusceptible to sugges- 
tion. If he is told : "Look at that bird!" he only shakes his head; he 
does not see anything. If the speaking-tube is removed from his ear, 
he cr«n usually hear no more. 



HYPNOTISM. 31 

In the cataleptic state the senses are a little more active, while the 
general sensibility to pain is completely absent. By affecting the 
special senses, sight, hearing, smell and taste, a number of ideas can 
be imparted to the cataleptic ; but the muscular sensibility is specially 
acute, and through it characteristic attitudes can produce correspond- 
ing ideas in the brain. 

Also in the somnambulistic stage sensibility to pain is usually 
absent ; but this phenomenon sometimes varies in the same individual 
at different times ; sometimes the sensibility to pain is even increased. 
The other senses also show variations. Some are benumbed, others 
highly sharpened, especially the senses of temperature and touch. 
The mildest current of air is then felt with the greatest acuteness 
even at a distance of several yards. The attraction to certain persons 
seems to depend on increased sensibility {hyper 'cesthesia.) The som- 
nambulist who is hypnotized by the pressure of my linger on the top 
of his head, afterwards follows me like a faithful dog. If I absent 
myself, he grows nervous, follows me and holds on to me. This does 
not seem to depend on any mystic u rapport " between the hypnotizer 
and the hypnotized, but on some special unconscious modification of 
the sen^e of touch, as is easily proved by the following experiment. 
The patient is hypnotized by some one. Two other persons approach 
and each grasps a hand of the somnambulist. Which will she follow? 
Which gets now her sympathy ? Well! it is divided between the two^ 
she grasps with equal firmness the hands of both. 

Many interesting observations have been made with reference to 
an extreme sensibility of the skin, and in this hyperesthesia is found 
the most reasonable explanation of many wonderful phenomena in the 
somnambulists such as their ability to help themselves without the aid 
of their eyes, both in walking and in judging about objects near them. 
Braid has pointed out, that the somnambulist's pretended power of 
seeing with some other organ than the eye, is an error ; that when with 
blindfolded eyes he describes the shape of an object held at a dis- 
tance of one or two inches from the skin of his neck, head, arm, hand 
or other parts, the perception is imparted through the extremely shar- 
pened sense of temperature of the skin, besides the power of the 
object of radiating or absorbing heat. The sense of hearing is also 
sharpened, according to Braid, to fourteen times the normal. This 
same writer also mentions the case of a lady who had so acute a sense 
of smell, that at a distance of forty-six feet, blindfolded, she could 
follow a rose just as surely as a hound follows a hare. 

In modern times, Berger of Breslau, has specially submitted the 
question to close investigation. The slightest touch of a hair upon 
the skin is felt by the somnambulist and accurately localized. With 
Weber's instrument for measuring sensibility, Berger found the sense 
of space of the skin to be three times sharper than the normal. Also 



32 HYPNOTISM. 

the senses of pressure, temperature, hearing, smell and sight were 
measured by Berger and were found sharpened. 

In hysterical women, Dumontpallier could produce muscular con- 
tractions by such gentle means as the ultra-red and ultra-violet rays 
of the Drummond light refracted through a prism, or by sound waves, 
directed to the skin by means of a rubber tube. The ticking sound 
of a watch, directed in the same way, produced muscular movements 
repeated even in the same rhythm. It was probably this sensibility 
of the skin to the slightest air-current which acted when the ancient 
magnetizers succeeded in producing muscular contraction by merely 
pointing at a muscle from a distance. 

In spite of the opposite statements of Braid and Azam, the sense 
of sight can also be highly sharpened. A remarkable proof of this 
was exhibited a couple of years ago by Taguet, before the medico- 
psychological society of Paris. A young girl had from childhood 
shown the ordinary symptoms of hysteria. At nine years of age she 
had had hystero-epileptic fits. After many vain attempts she was at 
last successfully hypnotized, and then several interesting phenomena 
appeared, which by this author are described thus : 

" While Noelie is in a convulsive crisis, in catalepsy, or in lethargy, 
which we successively cause by different pressures, we draw on her 
face some lines, with a lead pencil or with ink, some distinct, others 
hardly noticeable. We now put her into a somnambulistic state and 
hold before her a flat object, usually one with a dull not a reflecting 
surface, a piece of pasteboard, for instance. She has hardly glanced at 
this, before she expresses her astonishment that her face is soiled, 
and she wipes off one line after another, using the pasteboard as a real 
looking-glass. The pasteboard has to be turned to and fro, in order 
that all the lines may be detected. Behind her head, yet so that their 
reflections in the pasteboard can reach her eyes, we place various 
objects, such as a ring, a watch, a pipe, paper-dolls, coins, lead pencils; 
she sees them, describes and names them, sometimes slowly however ; 
for instance, when instead of a watch a tencentime piece was rapidly 
exhibited, she still tried to read the hour; but suddenly she ex- 
claimed: 'The watch is gone! That is two sous.' If we go behind her 
and show our faces in her pasteboard mirror, she immediately bows, 
asks a question, or reminds us of a promise. If we throw a kiss at 
her, she exclaims that we guy her ; if we persevere, she grows angry and 
spits at the mirror. If we raise two fingers behind her forehead, she 
grows sad and crosses herself repeatedly; she cries that she sees the 
devil with horns, and exhorts one of her friends to pray with her. The 
sight of a crucifix makes her glad, and she extends her arms backward 
to reach it ; but if she should happen to touch it she does not feel it. 
The paper-dolls that are being swung over her head amuse her a great 
deal and she exclaims : ' What a droll mirror ! I see in it alternately the 



HYPNOTISM. 33 

good God, the devil, and paper-dolls.' One day we exhibit her garter, 
which has dropped during one of her crises ; she immediately recog- 
nizes it and asks how that can be in her looking-glass. Several 
unknown persons pass behind her bed, so that they can be seen in the 
mirror ; she says something to every one : ' This one is young ; that 
one is old ; this one has a black beard, this one has a white beard ; 
this one is gay ; this one is a mocker.' She sees every gesture, every 
motion of the lips. One takes a cigar and pretends to smoke. 'Make 
yourself at home,' she says. About another who crosses himself, she 
says: 'That one is a good Christian.' If the inscription; 'I am the 
devil,' is . exhibited, she crosses herself in terror. If instead, a slip 
with the inscription : ' I am the good God ' is shown, she grows 
extremely glad. 

" These inscriptions are alternated, and she always shows that she 
understands them, even if she does not read them aloud. While the 
pasteboard is lifted and her eyes follow it upward, her breast is bared • 
when the mirror is again lowered, she discovers it, brushes, and begins 
to adjust her dress ; but it is only necessary to hold her hands to make 
her forget the commenced movement, and to lift the mirror to bring 
her out of her temporary confusion. 

"Her sense of smell also shows a highly increased acuteness. In 
order to test this, we bring her again into a somnambulistic state ; we 
take a visiting-card and tear it into small pieces, which are hidden 
under the carpet of another room, behind furniture, in glasses, flower- 
pots, in the stove, in our pockets. We then return and give her a 
piece of the card. She smells of it several times, reflects a little, and 
rushes out into the other room, runs around, and sniffs and searches 
like a sleuth-hound for the pieces. Suddenly she stops, sniffs, screams 
with joy, and picks out a piece of the card. She passes indifferently 
those persons and objects which hide nothing, but stops obstinately 
wherever a piece of card is hidden. Protests do not discourage her 
and she persists until she produces the piece, which she evidently traces 
by her acute smell. After she has found most of the pieces, she fits 
them carefully together into a whole, and deciphers the contents of the 
text. Even with blindfolded eyes she can fit the pieces, together. 
If then, somebody is made to remove one or more pieces she first 
becomes impatient and nervous, counts the pieces, and soon attacks 
the thief like a fury, shrieking, gesticulating and pommeling him, until 
he gives up what he has taken. If he has gone away, she follows his 
tracks and finds him. If we try to mix in pieces of another card, 
she immediately finds the right ones by smelling of them, and throws 
away the wrong ones. If objects that have been carried by different 
persons are placed on her bed, she can give each one his own, by 
smelling of the objects and of the persons. After half an hour's exer- 
tion, she does not succeed so well, as she becomes tired, so that her 



34 HYP NO TIS3L 

sense of smell is also weakened. After awaking she remembers nothing 
of what has passed." 

The case just described, thus shows a considerably increased 
acuteness of both the sense of sight and that of smell during the 
somnambulistic , state. In other somnanbulists, on the contrary, a 
total anosmia, is sometimes found, that is, inability to experience odors, 
even the most intense. In such a case blowing into the nose is often 
all that is necessary to restore the sense of smell. 

Concerning the sense of sight of the somnambulist it has been 
found that he can see through the smallest opening between the appar- 
ently completely closed eyelids ; and Chambard does not consider it 
impossible that seeing can take place, to some extent at least, through 
the eyelids, which are often so thin that they let the stronger rays of 
light through. Cases are mentioned, where color-blindness has been 
caused in the opposite eye merely by friction on one side of the head, 
which blindness ceased when the same side of the head was again 
rubbed. 

By careful estimation, the physiologist Beaunis, of Nancy has 
found increased power of hearing with reference both to the strength 
of the sound and to the speed [time of reaction] with which the sound 
is heard. 

Tamburini and Sepilli found a sharpening of the sense of hearing 
during the lethargic stage, and this in so high a degree that the patient 
jumped at the slightest sound, and at a continuous noise experienced a 
general tremor, which easily produced a sort of tetanus. The catalep- 
tic stage, on the contrary, caused complete numbness of all the senses, 
as also of the sensibility to pain. If the eyes were opened during the 
lethargic state — which produced catalepsy — a tattoo might be beaten 
close to the patient's ears without his hearing in the least, and his eyes 
remained staring and fixed ; for his sense of sight was now also extin- 
guished. Any kind of motion might be made before his eyes, without 
causing the eyelids to wink perceptibly. The deepest incisions into 
the skin were not felt; the strongest vapors (hartshorn, etc.) before 
ths nose, or the most bitter substance (quinine) laid on the tongue 
was not felt. 

The difference showed itself best if one side was made cataleptic, the 
other lethargic. The latter showed pain at very superficial stabs into 
the skin, the former was entirely insensible to the deepest cuts. A 
slight noise before the ear of theJethargic side caused trembling and 
muscular activity in that side but had no influence the other. If pun- 
gent vapors were lead into the nostril of the lethargic side, the head 
was rapidly drawn away, whereas the same experiment on the other 
nostril left the patient entirely unaffected. Such was also the case 
with the sense of taste. If the cataleptic side of the tongue was 
painted with a solution of quinine, it did not move ; if, on the other 



HYPNOTISM. 35 

Land, the lethargic half of the tongue was painted, the tongue immedi- 
ately drew backward, the whole face expressed nausea, and foamy saliva 
accumulated in the mouth. 

The influence of hypnotism on the respiration and circulation is 
rather uncertain and as yet but little investigated. Bernheim's opin- 
ion, that all the changes of this kind depend only upon the influence of 
suggestion, varying mental states and affections, is too , one-sided. By 
careful observation Tamburini and Sepilli have found constant effects 
of the different hypnotic stages, such as stronger respiratory move- 
ments during the lethargic state, weaker during the cataleptic; vas- 
cular dilatation during the former, vascular contraction during the lat- 
ter. In hysterical persons respiration is always quickened at the 
beginning of the sleep, often in connection with a peculiar noise in the 
throat, and sleep is always preceded by at least one or two deep inhal 
ations. On transition from the lethargic to the cataleptic state by 
opening of the eyes, respiration often completely ceases {apnoea) for as 
much as a whole minute, and for a long time afterwards it remains 
superficial, irregular and labored. The most remarkable phenomena 
within the circulation — local congestions and hemorrhages — are pro- 
duced by suggestion, about which more will be said later on. 



CHAPTER VII. 



PSYCHICAL EFFECTS OF HYPNOTISM. 



THE influence of hypnotism upon mental life — its psychical effects — 
is rich and varied, and of so pecular a nature (often opposed to 
ordinary mental life and sometimes even bordering on the incompre- 
hensible and marvelous) that these phenomena, w T hich at all times 
chiefly interested the public at large, and of late have also attracted 
the serious attention and study of the scientists, well deserve a more 
extensive consideration in this w T ork. 

As for the influence of hypnotism on the special senses, we have 
•already seen how perception of external impressions is greatly modified, 
although in different ways during different hypnotic stages, so that the 
senses are sometimes benumbed, sometimes extremely sharpened. On 
this a number of the psychical phenomena of hypnosis depend. Here 
Ave would only recall to memory, that during lethargy all the senses 
are benumbed, except sometimes hearing; that during catalepsy, 
one sense or another wakes, but that especially the muscular 
sense is very impressionable ; and finally that during somnanbulism 
the senses are not only awake, but generally highly acute. This also 
applies to the other mental faculties during the somnambulistic state, 



36 HYPNOTISM. 

and hence somnambulism offers the greatest variety of marvelous 
phenomena within mental life, and hence is best adapted to psycho- 
logical experiment. 

Among the sharpened mental faculties memory takes the first 
place ; indeed it can be said that it is principally the memory that 
masters the whole scene of the somnambulic drama. Under different, 
circumstances the memory proves exceedingly good or particularly 
dull. It is a very characteristic and constant fact that the deeply- 
hypnotized, upon waking, remember nothing of all that has taken place 
during the sleep, whereas, if again put to sleep, they then very clearly 
remember what they have thought or experienced during previous 
hypnoses. It seems as if there were two separate forms of life, the 
normal, wakeful life and the somnambulistic life, each with its experi- 
ence, its memory; that the two spheres are rather independent of each 
other ; that the personality is doubled, as it were. These spheres are 
not entirely without connection, for it is a second characteristic quality 
of the somnambulistic memory, that it holds not only remembrances 
from previous somnambulic states, but also from the w T akeful state, and 
these much more lively than the normal. As long-forgotten things 
can return during natural sleep in dreams, so the memory during 
hypnosis can show an incredible acuteness as to past events and 
impressions received long ago, which otherwise in the wakeful state 
cannot be brought to consciousness even with the greatest effort. By 
this acuteness of the memory, the ability of the somnambulist to recite 
poetry can be explained, as also the fact that he can express himself in 
foreign languages, of which he formerly had only a slight knowledge. 

There is however a means, but only one, of restoring to memory 
in the wakeful state that which has passed during the hypnosis, viz.: 
suggestion. If you assure a hypnotized person during his sleep, that 
upon waking he will remember all that he has heard, said or done in 
his sleep, he will then remember it upon awaking ; otherwise he will 
not. It is essentially necessary that the hand of an outsider put this 
mechanism of memory into motion; the subject himself cannot do it I 
But that is not all; by suggestion you may in the same w r ay so 
thoroughly obliterate memory, with reference to both the wakeful and 
the hypnotic states, so that it even does not return as usual in later 
hypnoses. This has a great practical significance, especially from a 
juridical point of view, to which we shall later return. 

Some instances published by Beaunis might best illustrate the 
above-mentioned qualities of the memory. , 

Miss E., who felt a repugnance towards certain articles of food 
and who was ordered by Beaunis to observe a certain dietary, could 
seldom minutely give an account of what she had eaten a couple 
of days before, if she was questioned about it when awake. By put- 
ting her to sleep, on the contrary, B, received the most minute and 



HYPNOTISM. 37 

complete accounts of the meals, including even such trifles as other- 
wise do not generally attract one's attention. 

Hypnotized at the physiological laboratory in Nancy, the same 
person was informed by suggestion, that upon awaking she should 
see Mr. X., (who was then present) with a nose of silver ten inches 
long. We need not add that he had his own natural nose. When 
she, upon awaking, beheld Mr. X., she immediately began to laugh 
aloud. — "What is the matter?" — "Of course you see that nose!" — 
"It is a hallucination that I have imparted to you ; it is not true." — 
"But I see the nose clearly, though." — "Well, I will take that fancy 
from you." — Beaunis now assured her that the silver nose was gone. — 
" Oh look ! Mr. X. has no longer any silver nose ; — he has an ordinary 
nose!" — "Of course!" — "Well, do you now remember that you just 
saw Mr. X., with a silver nose?" — "No! his nose has always been as I 
now see it." Thus she had no memory of the hallucination produced 
by suggestion. 

The case is the same with actions. Madam A., is hypnotized by 
staring. While asleep, she is made to believe that three minutes after 
awaking, she will go and embrace a little peasant woman, who is sit- 
ting in the corner of the room ancl whom she then sees for the first 
time. At the moment predicted, she goes and embraces the woman, 
who is quite astonished at this unexpected caress. When a moment 
afterward she was asked "What did you do?" — she answered "I? 
Nothing!" "Yes, you embraced that woman." — "No! certainly not." 
— She had already forgotten what she had done. 

From this it may be seen, that such actions as are afterwards 
acted out during the wakeful state on account of suggestion under 
hypnosis, yet are not done with fully awakened consciousness, but 
probably in a somnambulistic state — produced for the occasion — which 
lasts only during the time of the action. Still more complicated 
actions of the same kind are usually forgotten. 

But yet again : Suggestions can be produced even in an entirely 
wakeful state, and these can also be effaced from memory. During* 
a conversation with Miss E., when she was fully awake and had not 
been hypnotized once during that day, B. quite unexpectedly closed 
her hand saying: "You can no more open your hand!" She tried in 
vain and said " Please open my hand, for otherwise I cannot work ! " — 
After awhile B. said: "Now you can open your hand yourself!" — 
She opened it without difficulty. A few minutes later, B. asked: "Of 
course you remember, that a moment ago you could not open your 
hand? " "No; I have always been able to open it." 

In a like manner, B. could make the same lady believe, in a wake- 
ful state, that a friend's hat, which she saw before her, was white 
although it was really garnet-colored ; and though she then first con- 
tradicted B., when he declared it garnet-colored, she immediately forgot 
that she had seen it white. 



38 HYPNOTISM. 

On another occasion she was compelled by suggestion to twirl her 
hands around each other. During this proceeding, she acknowledged 
that she was fully awake ; that she well knew what she was doing, but 
that she could not stop the movement; she also promised to remember 
what she was doing, but nevertheless she remembered nothing after B. 
had stopped her hands. So, too, suggested actions of greater complex- 
ity can be forgotton. 

Miss E., had just entered when B. said to her: "In one minute 
you will go and change the two statuettes, (Thiers and Beranger), on 
that etagere." At the appointed time she did it, but did not remem- 
ber it. Mrs. A., who was of the company, was sure that anything so 
silly would certainly never happen to her. "Very well!" said B., 
" in one minute, madam, you will steal one sou out of my coat-pocket 
and put it in your own." One minute later, with some hesitation, the 
lady rose, furtively slipped her hand into B's pocket, took out a son 
and put it quite unconcernedly into her own. A moment afterwards 
B., said: "Empty your pocket!" She looked at him quite astonished, 
emptied the contents of her pocket into her lap, found among other 
things one sou, looked at it for a moment and put the coin into her 
pocket-book. One of the assistants then said: "That coin was not 
yours, you have just taken it from Mr. B." She remembered nothing 
and lives in the belief that it was her coin. 

Not always however does the memory in these cases disappear so 
quickly; sometimes it lasts for some minutes, bat finally disappears 
entirely. The strangest thing is, that the suggestions, performed 
during wakefulness and soon forgotten, again return to memory 
during the next hypnosis. This gives further support • to the opinion 
that the action was performed in a somnambulistic though apparently 
wakeful state. 

Through suggestion persons can also be made to have certain 
dreams during the natural sleep. Furthermore, memory can be partly 
extinguished; for instance, a person can be made to forget all the 
vowels, all the consonants; this vowel or consonant or that one; 
nouns, adjectives, pronouns, even his own name, special periods of 
his life etc. In one word, it would seem to be as easy to benumb by 
suggestion a certain group of brain-cells, as it is to paralyze a muscle. 

Finally, we will call attention to the latent, unconscious memory, 
which manifests itself by the fact that an action ordered by suggestion 
for a certain time is performed punctually at the prescribed moment, 
though months and even years may have elapsed, and although the 
person has not thought of the matter during the intervening time, nor 
had it in conscious memory. There seems to be hardly any limit to 
this latent memory. Beaunis quotes one case, where the action was 
performed after 172 days ; others tell of still greater differences in the 
time between the suggestion and the execution. When the action is 



HYPNOTISM. 39 

then performed, it is not on account of a conscious remembering that 
it should be done, but through an unconscious and irresistible im- 
pulse, without the motives being clear to consciousness. This is some- 
thing very peculiar, and has no analogy within the normal functions 
of memory. Under ordinary circumstances it happens, though, that 
something that has been forgotten — a name, a date, etc. — and which 
you in vain try to find in the dim corridors of memory, will return of 
itself on a later occasion, usually however, brought forth by some 
chance occurrence that causes an association of ideas in that direction. 
But time and moment are not decided for such a resurrection of mem 
ory. The cast is very • different with the somnambulistic memory, 
where the impulse of performing the previously suggested action 
always occurs at the hour given, and of itself, without being caused 
by any external occurrence or association. For instance, I tell the 
hypnotized person that on the tenth day after this at five P. M., he 
will open a certain book and read page 25. Although the idea of 
opening the prescribed page of the book unconsciously lingers in his 
brain, and is so strong that it absolutely compels him to do it when 
the fixed hour has arrived, he can not even be reminded of this idea 
before the appointed hour, even if the said page of the book is shown 
to him. Only when the right hour has come, are the memory of the 
action and the impulse to it awakened. Thus we see that here we 
have no common association. This phenomenon has been proved so 
often that it can not be doubted, although it is difficult to explain. 
An analogy may be found in the ability possessed by many to awake 
from ordinary sleep at a determined hour, when they have thoroughly 
made up their minds to it. Still more common is the previously de- 
termined punctual waking from hypnotic sleep. Before or during the 
hypnosis, you say to the subject : " You will awake in five, ten, fifteen 
minutes; " or, "You will sleep so many hours; " and it never fails that 
waking takes place punctually % at the prescribed time. 



The intellectual ability of the hypnotized is more difficult to 
estimate than is the acuteness of the senses and memory. It can gen- 
erally be said, however, that the intellect [power of judgment] keeps 
pace with the sensibility and memory. In lethargy, which corresponds 
to deep, natural sleep without dreams, the intellect also sleeps. Only 
the hearing is enough awake to be able to accept some simple sugges- 
tions, some hallucinations. It is first during catalepsy and still more 
during somnambulism, that mental life awakes ; that the hypnotic 
dream begins and develops to great vividness. Characteristic of 
catalepsy is the automatism, the involuntary, passive, machine-like, 
mental activity. Through suggestion the cataleptic can be forced to 
psychical activity, but the latter is entirely dependent upon the exter- 
nal impulses, and is not regulated by any internal motives ; the cata- 



40 HYPNOTISM. 

lep tic individual is an inert tool in the hand of the hypnotizer; he 
makes no resistance and takes no initiative of his own ; he is a doll, 
a marionette, whose actions are entirely dependent upon the cords 
that are pulled; he is no personality ; there is no cataleptic ego. He 
is like one asleep who is completely a slave of his dreams. 

Such is not the case with the somnambulist. He is much more 
independent; he is a personality, with a certain character, with 
distinct sympathies and antipathies ; certainly in a great measure 
susceptible to suggestion, but at the same time possessing a certain 
power of criticism, of resistance, of freedom. As for the mental 
faculties of the somnambulist, they are by no means different in 
quality from those of the normal, wakeful state, though they are of 
different acuteness ; they often prove highly sharpened in all direc- 
tions : the senses more acute, the sensibility quickened, the judgment 
more rapid, the fantasy livelier ; all the strings of the soul are tuned 
higher ; their condition might be best compared to a slight maniacal 
exaltation. But the somnambulist is not such a passive automaton as 
is the cataleptic; he certainly is easily impressed by suggestion, if that 
does not touch his personality ; but if this is concerned, he can 
say nay, offer resistance, show judgment of his own and a certain 
freedom of action. The somnambulist shows especially a certain 
independence with reference to other persons' influence over him, so 
that he, for instance, blindly obeys those who awaken his sympathy, 
but opposes all others. This kind of independence, however, is often 
seeming rather than real. For the sympathy mentioned can be pro- 
duced in a very artificial manner. The person who has caused the 
somnambulism by some direct personal contact — such as pressure on 
the head with the naked hand, " passes " etc. — always becomes the 
chosen one, to whom the somnambulist renders blind obedience. 
This is plainly shown by the following experiment. Instead of using 
the hand, the top of the head is pressed by a wooden spoon, a roll of 
paper, or any inanimate object. The somnambulist then remains indif- 
ferent ; any one can now exert influence over him ; produce contrac- 
tures ; again relax them ; waken him etc. ; whereas, if he were hypnotized 
by direct personal contact, no one except the one who touched him has 
any further influence on him. But besides this rather artificial sym- 
pathy, there is also, as in normal life, a natural sympathy, a certain 
"rapport.^ which makes the somnambulist more easily influenced by 
one person than by another. 

Before proceeding with the consideration of the somnambulic 
psychical phenomena, we will more closely investigate the method 
which is used to produce and guide these phenomena, and which can 
be comprised in the modern name — suggestion. 



HYPNOTISM. 41 

CHAPTER VIII. 

SUGGESTION. 

SUGGESTION, from the Latin suggerere, to lay under, to inform, 
would perhaps in our language be best rendered as "inspiration" or 
"imagination ; " but, as these words are used only in the sense of spon- 
taneous internal inspiration — imagination — spontaneous suggestion, 
whereas suggestion generally signifies an inspiration from without or 
an internally imparted sensation, thought, impulse, etc. — for which 
meaning the modern expression " transmission of thought" is not 
fully exhaustive either, — we prefer to use the term suggestion, which 
originated in France, and is generally used both in that and in other 
civilized countries. 

It is not easy to give a definition of the word suggestion, which 
persons begin to use with a more and more extensive meaning. It 
might be said, that by this word is meant every operation, which in a - 
living being causes some involuntary effect, the impulse to which 
passes through the intellect, producing some imagination or idea, or 
simply: control over a person by means of an idea. A concrete 
example will more easily explain this abstract definition, which, for the 
reader, may be somewhat hard to digest. On one hypnotized a 
contracture is produced in the muscle that bends the arm by squeezing 
the muscle, or without touching it, by merely saying: "'Your arm is 
bent; you cannot straighten it!" In the former case the procedure is 
purely physical : the excitation to muscular contraction is a reflex- 
action, so-called, which runs over from the sensory nerves of the 
muscle to its niotory nerves, without passing through the intelligent 
sphere of the brain ? in the latter case the excitation goes through the 
organ of hearing to this sphere, where it produces an idea or illusion 
that the muscle is going to contract ; this imagination produces in the 
muscles motor centre in the brain an impulse, which is communicated 
to the muscle through its motor. We see that this way of suggestion 
to the muscle is far longer, and that it passes more stations than does 
the simple reflex-action. All suggestion is thus mediated through an 
"ideation" or action of ideas or illusions. The great susceptibility of 
the organism to influence from such ideations explains the important 
role that is played by imagination, in the causing and curing of certain 
diseases. 

But the roads to the brain centre of ideas and imaginations are 
many, and hence there are also many kinds of suggestion. The sim- 
plest, shortest, most convenient and consequently most common way 
is that of the spoken word. It goes directly through the ear to the 
brain. The somnambulist is told that something is thus or so ; that 
he is seeing, hearing or feeling this or that*; that he will do this or 



42 HYPNOTISM. 

that ; and then his ideas concentrate exclusively on this. This sug- 
gestion by words is called verbal suggestion. But the word can also 
be written. The only difference then is that the suggestion enters 
through the eye instead of through the ear. Also the other senses? 
smell, taste and especially touch, are easy routes for suggestion. 

It is worth while to give special attention to the suggestion through 
the sense of touch, which in a measure arises within the organism of 
the somnambulist himself through the muscular sensibility ; the last 
named interprets the different attitudes, of the body (if these are in 
any way characteristic) as expressing some special mood, affection or 
passion in the brain, and produces certain corresponding ideas, moods 
and motions. This form of suggestion is by the French called " sug- 
gestion par attitude." For instance, if you place some one in the 
attitude of prayer, without mentioning by a single word that he is 
going to pray, the mere position awakens in his brain the idea of 
prayer, and not only his position but also his facial expression then 
shows that he is exclusively thinking of prayer. If he is placed in a 
tragic attitude, his face assumes a tragical expression ; if his fist is 
clinched, his eyebrows contract and anger is reflected on his face. If 
he is made to commence a movement with some distinct aim, he 
continues the movement himself. If he is placed on all fours, his 
locomotion is that of a quadruped. If a pen is placed in his hand, he 
will write ; if some fancy-work with needle and thread is placed in the 
hands of a woman, she begins to sew. The positions in which the 
hypnotized are placed easily create corresponding ideas in the degree 
that they are expressive and common. There are instances of such 
suggestions by positions even in completely healthy, wide-awake persons 
with strong imaginations. Bennett tells of a butcher, who, when he 
was about to hang a piece of meat, caught his own arm on the hook 
and remained hanging until he was taken down half dead with pain 
and fright. Although he complained of pain in his arm, which he 
supposed to be pierced by the hook, the arm was found entirely unin- 
jured, and the hook had only caught in his clothes. 

This suggestion through attitudes impressed from without and 
sensations experienced within, borders on the suggestion which comes 
entirely from within, and which is consequently called auto-suggestion 
or self-suggestion. As instances of this, cases like the following have 
been quoted. 

During hypnosis a woman was made to believe that she was 
wrestling with her physician, and that she had given him a strong 
blow in the face. The day after, when her imagined adversary entered 
the room, she claimed that she saw a large black and blue spot on his 
face, although there was no trace of it. This hallucination had arisen 
in her through self-suggestion. No one from without had created this 
idea in her. It was eaused in her own brain by her previous idea of 



HYPNOTISM. 43 

the wrestling. She thought: "I gave him yesterday a sound blow 
on his face; consequently, he must to-day have some mark from it." 

Another woman, who was one morning put into a deep lethargic 
sleep, but only for five minutes, imagined upon wakening that she 
had slept for many hours. The physician let her remain in this belief, 
and told her that it was 2. P. M., although it was but 9. A. M. At this 
imformalion the patient immediately experienced sharp hunger and 
asked to have some dinner. This imaginary hunger was satisfied by 
a meal, equally imaginary. Through suggestion the hallucination was 
produced in her that a plate with victuals was standing on the table 
and that she was partaking of a meal. She became satisfied and spoke 
no more of hunger. 

Concerning these cases of self-suggestion, so-called, it might how- 
ever be remarked, that although the later ideas have arisen in the 
brain of the patients themselves, yet they are really but a continuation, 
a logical sequel of the ideas that had previously arisen through im- 
pulse from without. 

Such an independent and yet irresistible completion of an idea, 
so that it even changes into feeling, desire, and action, is generally 
found in the somnambulists, yet with far more lack of freedom than in 
the wakeful. 

Beaunis quotes several striking instances of this. 

After he had hypnotized Miss E., he said: "When you awake, 
you will say to Mrs. A. : "I should like very much to have a few 
cherries ! " Awhile after awaking, she went to her friend, Mrs. A., 
and whispered something to' her. B. then said: "I know what you 
whispered ; that you longed for cherries." — "How do you know that?" 
she said quite astonished. On the following day she bought some 
cherries to satisfy her violent longing for them. Mark well, that B. 
had merely suggested the words, but through the words she had 
spoken, the desire had arisen : all of which shows the close connection 
between words, ideas, and sensation. The expression of the desire 
blends with the desire itself. Yet it is not so in a waking person. 
If I repeat ever so many times the words: "I desire cherries," then, 
unless I already had the desire for them, I certainly do not conceive it 
by merely repeating these worjls. Nor am I compelled to write 
because I take a pen in my hand. This shows, that in the hypnotized 
the associations of ideas are more automatic, more dependent upon 
external circumstances, whereas, in the wakeful state they are con- 
trolled, regulated, checked when necessary, and generally guided by a 
conscious free will. 



Before we proceed, we will somewhat discuss the question of 
susceptibility to suggestion. Who are more or less susceptible 

First we would remark that susceptibility manifests itself not 



44 HYPNOTISM. 

• 
only during hypnotic, but also during natural sleep ; yea, even during 
the completely wakeful state. 

Many who are used to receiving suggestions during hypnosis, also 
prove susceptible to such suggestions during the completely wakeful 
state, without any need of their first being put to sleep. The influence 
which the hypnotizer acquires over his subjects during hypnosis, 
ofter continues to a certain extent, when they live their usual life. 
But many persons are also found, who have never been thus prepared 
by hypnotism and who yet prove highly susceptible to suggestion 
and this even without proving particularly susceptible to hypnotism. 
This is especially the case with all imaginative persons. Only by seeing 
or hearing of a disease, they can imagine that they suffer from the 
same complaint. Especially within the nervous system many ailments 
are to be found — such as spasm, contracture, paralysis, neuralgia, 
ansestLhsis, etc. — which arise in this way. It is easy by mere assur- 
ance to transfer such a disease from one part of the body to another. 
Before the biological society of Paris, Botty has exhibited healthy and 
wakeful persons, who, by merely an energetic assurance, or by some 
anointing, could be rapidly made mute, blind, deaf, insensible to odors, 
or striken with palsy, contracture, or ansesthesis. It is obvious that 
such diseases are just as easily cured by suggesion or by a confidence- 
inspiring assurance that they are cured. This explains how such 
thaumaturgists as Boltzius possibly succeed in a few cases belonging 
to this category. 

Nothing is more common than for those who study medical books 
— and even young medical students — to feel distinct symptoms of the 
diseases of which they are reading at the time. Bremaud tells of a 
young student, on whom he could at pleasure produce contracture, 
anses thesis, etc. The student, who was in good health, could not 
understand why he could not move his limbs when B. forbade him to 
do so, and why B. could stick needles through his skin without his 
experiencing any pain. Another student, who was in this manner 
fastened to a chair or pinned to the floor, became quite angry over the 
awkardness of his situation. 

As a proof of how one suggestion neutralizes another, B. gave to 
each of the students mentioned a box well wrapped up, with a state- 
ment that the box contained something that would make them insus- 
ceptible to every suggestion. As long as they held the box in their 
hands, it was impossible to renew the experiment just mentioned. 
But great was their astonishment when they afterward opened the 
boxes and found that they contained — nothing. 

In the same way, wide-awake persons can be made to jump, dance, 
assume the most comical postures, or to become insensible. Without 
previously hypnotizing the patient, Bernheim succeeded in causing 
such insensibility that the roots of five teeth could be pulled out with 



HYPNOTISM. 45 

out the slighest pain. Probably, however, there is a certain nervous 
weakness in individuals so susceptible to suggestion, although they are 
apparently healthy. Yet this is more easily done with those who are 
used to being hypnotized, and although seemingly awake, they must 
be considered as being put by the suggestion into a less perceptible 
{latent) hypnotic state. 

Since remote times, such imperceptible states of hypnotism have 
l>een known under the names of enchantment and fascination. The 
snake-charmers of India have practised this form of suggestion for 
thousands of years. 

In modern times, the attention of the scientists was called to this 
strange phenomenon — suggestion of the wakeful — about 1848, by one 
Grimes from New England, who in wakeful persons produced the same 
nervous phenomena as his contemperaries, Braid and his pupils, caused 
in the hypnotized. The method, which was called by Grimes Electro- 
Biology, was introduced into England in 1850 by Dr. Darling, and 
awakened great interest in the mind of the physiologist, Carpenter. 
In his " Mental Physiology " C. devotes a whole chapter to this 
biological state or "induced dream." Those "biologized " are considered 
as awake. These suggestions in the wakeful have been throughly 
studied by Bernhei-m, Liegeois, Beaunis and others. According to 
Liegeois such a person does not show the slightest sign of sleep ; his 
eyes are open ; his movements easy, he speaks, walks, acts as every- 
body else; he joins in the conversation, answers objections; he 
discusses with successful hits ; he seems to be in a fully normal state, 
except in the one respect, where he is checked by the person who 
experiments with him. 

A similar state, though somewhat more akin to somnambulism, 
Liegeois describes under the name of "charmed 

Beaunis points out, that those " suggested " in the waking state 
may be mistaken for persons slightly hypnotized with open eyes. I 
myself have seen such a condition in a spiritual medium, who sometimes 
entered into a somnambulic state — by the spiritualists called 'trance" 
— when with open eyes he fell into a kind of ecstasy with hallucina- 
tions, sharpened mental faculties etc. 

In one word, there are a number of different stages between the 
completely wakeful state and the deep somnambulic sleep ; and it is 
often exceedingly difficult to decide whether a person who proves 
susceptible to suggestion is fully awake, or in a slight, latent, somnam- 
bulic state. I am inclined to think that a latent somnambulism is 
present much oftener than is supposed, especially if the meaning of 
somnambulism be extended so far as to embrace all conditions — except- 
ing natural sleep and all pathological forms of insensibility depending 
upon distinct diseases, poisoning, etc — where consciousness, judgment 
and free will do not possess their ordinary acuteness and distinctness. 



46 HYPNOTISM. 

According to this opinion all who prove susceptible to suggestion^ 
would at the time be more or less somnambulistic ; but if they really 
are fully awake, and yet allow themselves to be imposed upon by 
suggestion, they may at least be considered as "poor sticks." 

Yet there are conditions, under which strong minds also can be 
ensnared by a suggestion, viz. : — when they are taken by surprise 
during a state of absent-mindedness, onesided thinking in another 
direction, lack of attention, temporary want of will, or too much. 
confidence in the one who produces the suggestion ; but all these 
conditions are such as make a person at least less loakeful, if not 
sleeping. 

In a limited sense, suggestion plays a far greater role in normal, 
human life, and appears daily far more often, then we think. Broadly- 
speaking, suggestion generally constitutes an important part of all 
education of children, of all teaching ; of the physician's treatment of 
the sick ; of the influence of all men over each other, for good or for 
evil. For instance it is a common experience that " confidence " in the 
physician and in the remedy in many diseases greatly promotes the 
success of the treatment. What is this but suggestion? The phy- 
sician or the remedy awakens in the brain of the sick person the idea, 
that just this physician or this remedy will cure his disease. This, 
suggestion is often more than half the cure. 

The like action of suggestion is to be seen, in every day life. If 
you suddenly say to a young, bashful girl : " How you are blushing! ' r 
her face usually grows red, although she did not have the slightest 
cause. By yawning or by pretending to yawn I can cause a whole 
company to yawn. Laughter and tears are also directly contagious ; 
my mouth waters when I hear a delicacy spoken of; all is suggestion, 
when it is a direct, not fully voluntary, reflex action that passes 
through the brain. 

As, in a somnambulist, by a fictitious story, I can produce the 
liveliest mental affections, so a wide-awake person may be moved 
to tears, to laughter, to expressions of joy, sorrow, anger, etc., by a. 
drama or by the reading of a novel. The difference between the 
suggestions in the two cases is not great. The reasoning thought, 
that the sorrow is fiction, not reality, immediately stops the tears, 
which were produced by merely a reflex action. 

This common human susceptibility to suggestion has its degrees, 
however; it is least developed in powerful thinkers — cold, practical 
men of sense — and most prominent in weak, sensitive., powerless, 
dependent natures, and generally most in women, children and old 
men. 

Also during natural sleep, man is susceptible to suggestion. But 
it would lead us too far to show how dreams can be produced and 
guided at pleasure by this means. 



HYPNOTISM. 47 

We have shown above, how suggestion can be conveyed in differ- 
ent ways and by different methods. One kind of suggestion, w 7 hich 
arises in the hypnotized by imitation, is especially described by 
Berger. The subjects of this sort of suggestion are by him called 
echolali, because they imitate precisely like an echo, inasmuch as they 
not only repeat every word spoken by the hypnotizer, but they also 
imitate every gesture, every motion ; and finally if they only hear a 
word, an intimation, they execute movements that are connected with 
this idea. The mere mentioning of the words, weeping, laughter 
singing, running, dancing, causes them to perform these several acts. 

Suggestion has a vast field for its effects; it can be said to be 
as extensive as the nervous system in general, inasmuch as all forms 
of nervous activity can be induced by suggestion. Thus the effects 
manifest themselves within the motor sphere by producing or inhibit- 
ing motions, and by producing all kinds of positions, and also changes 
in the condition of the muscles, such as contraction, contracture, 
tetanus, paralysis, etc., as well as within the sensitive or sensory sphere 
by causing or alleviating pain, seusitiveness or insensibility and by 
producing all possible changes in the senses ; their sharpening or 
benumbing. Still more important and varied are the effects of sugges- 
tion wdthin the higher psychical life, where thoughts, ideas, moods, 
desires, impulses and actions can all be ruled by it. This influence 
lasts not only for the moment and during the sleep, but by affecting 
the memory it also lasts far into the wakeful state through post hypno- 
tic suggestion, so-called. — Finally there is a sphere for suggestion,, 
where the normal influence of the nervous system, though quite per- 
ceptible, is as yet not fully explained by physiology, viz. : — the func- 
tions of the vegetative life, such as circulation, heat-production, diges- 
tion, excretion, etc. On this ground it seems that the influence of 
the nervous system can be increased, often to an incredible degree, by 
suggestion, w T hich has aided many a performer of wonders to produce 
so-called supernatural effects in this direction. 

Thus, with reference to their effects, suggestions might be 
classified as motor, sensitive, sensorial, hallucinatory, psychical, 
vegetative, etc. 

From another point of view, they may also be divided into posi- 
tive and negative ; the first-named, when a positive result is caused 
— an active effect, such as a motion, an action, a pain, an hallucination, 
a spoken or otherwise expressed thought ; the last-named, when they 
have a negative, inhibitive effect ; for instance, when insensibitity, 
palsy, blindness, deafness, dumbness, etc. are produced. 

We have shown in general, how suggestion by impression is 
imparted, and how it manifests itself by different expressions. But 
w r hat is it that mediates impressions and expressions 1 As we have 
seen, suggestion — unlike the simple reflex action, wiiich only passes 



48 HYPNOTISM. 

through the spinal chord — must pass through the centre of ideas in 
the brain ; the mediation thus takes place through an association of 
ideas. 

An instance best explains the machinery of suggestion. 

The hypotized person is told : " Look ! there is a bird on your 
table." As soon as the words are spoken, he sees the bird and feels it 
with his fingers ; he can even hear it sing. Thus, the mere word 
creates an hallucination, produced by the fact that the word, bird, and 
the image of the bird are always connected with each other by an 
association of ideas. The same optical illusion can be brought on by 
other means ; for instance, by describing a bird's flight through the 
air by means of the hand. Here it is the similarity between the move- 
ments of the hand and those of the bird that form the bridge of 
association. Some Scotch psychologists — Th. Brown, for instance — 
have called attention to the fact that the association is also really 
dependent on suggestion : one image, one idea suggests another ; thus 
the law of suggestion is a physiological basis for normal thinking. 
When an image arises in the brain, it always strives to arouse similar 
images, such as are through nature and habit most easily connected 
with the first one. Hence we find that this form of hypnotic sugges- 
tion, wonderful as it is at first may seem, and foreign to normal mental 
life, yet is nothing but a somewhat more complicated application of 
one of the most important fundamental laws of mind. This corrobo- 
rates the general rule : in natura non datur saltus, that is: — there is 
no leap in nature; from the normal functions of life you usually find 
changes into the abnormal, so slight and so slowly-appearing, that they, 
as subject to the same laws, cannot be plainly distinguished from each 
other. 

However, all forms of suggestion are not equally easy to explain. 
For both the negative suggestions and those which are put into action 
directly or a long time afterwards, offer great difficulties. Now ap- 
pears another influence of a higher, less mechanical kind, than when 
one image is produced by another, viz. : the impulse from a will that 
makes action voluntary, as opposed to reflex action. In those who 
act on account of suggestion, this impulse comes from without, from 
the will of the hypnotizer ; in the wakeful person, who acts voluntarily, 
it comes from the will of the latter himself ; this is the only difference. 
Besides, it is just as difficult in one case as in the other, to understand 
the connection between the mental impulse and the physical action. 
Here we stop before a dualism, where science is still searching in vain 
for the connecting link. That functions are suppressed by negative 
suggestion, must depend on the imparted fixed idea or belief, that the 
functions are impossible ; which idea totally checks both the impulse 
to motion in paralysis and the sense of feeling in ansesthesis. 



HYPNOTISM. 49 

After this general explanation, it will become easier to compre- 
hend — in some degree at least — the complex effects of suggestion. 
It is not easy to make a choice from the variety of instances offered 
by the literature, even if we adhere to only the most modern. For 
better order, we divide them into new main groups. 

Hallucinations or illusions. By hallucination is meant — as we 
all know — a perception through one of our senses without correspond- 
ing reality ; as when the eye perceives an image on a blank sheet of 
paper, or when the ear hears a voice though everything is still. On 
the other hand, we call it delusion, when the senses conceive a real 
object in a wrong way , as when the eye takes the picture of a man 
to be that of a horse ; or when the ear mistakes the stroke of a bell 
for a human voice. Both kinds are included in the name illusions. 
These constantly appear in our dreams and during various mental 
diseases. In the hypnotized they are easily produced by suggestion. 

These suggested illusions can affect all the senses, and can be varied 
ad infinitum according to the will of the hypnotizer. By deception 
of sight the room may be changed into a street, a garden, a cemetery, 
a lake ; present persons may be made to change appearance ; strangers 
to appear, objects to change form and color. On a blank sheet of 
paper all possible figures can be made to appear to the imagination ; 
the hypnotized can even be made to cast up long accounts with the 
numbers that they imagine they see on the paper. 

To the hearing, the voices of unknown persons can be made to 
sound like those of friends ; under complete silence sounds of birds 
and various animals can be produced, as can also voices, that speak 
gently or loudly, that praise, insult or scold. 

The sense of taste can be so deceived that raw potatoes taste 
like the most delicious peaches ; that the sweet tastes sour, the sour 
sweet ; even vomiting may be caused by merely declaring a draught of 
water, after it is in the stomach, to be an emetic. 

The sense of smell can be made to find the strongest odor in 
objects that have no smell at all, or to find the fragrance of roses in 
assafcetida, or abominable odors in a fragrant rose. 

The sense of touch can be deceived and cheated in various ways. 
In the part of the body that is declared insensible, incisions can be 
made with sharp needles, burning irons or keen-edged knives, without 
being noticed. The pain from an imaginary wound also arouses other 
hallucinations : — blood seems to run and the wound is carefully 
bandaged. 

Suggestion can affect the muscular sense, — so that objects seem 
heavy or the reverse — as also the organic sense or coenoesthesis, by 
which all kinds of natural desires (hunger, thirst, etc.) can be aroused 
or appeased. This organic sense can be so completely deceived, that 
the hypnotized individual believes himself to be an entirely different 
person. 



50 HYP NO TIJSM. 

An amusing instance of this kind is told by Binet and Fere: One 
day they said to the hypnotized Miss X., that she was Dr. F. After 
some slight opposition she agreed to it. Upon waking, she did not see 
Dr. F. who stood before her ; but she imitated his walk, his gestures, 
his speech ; from time to time she put her fingers to h »r lips and made 
a motion, as if she twisted a moustache, as the doctor was in the habit 
of doing, and she assumed a pompous mien and posture. At the 
question: "Do you know Miss X.? " she hesitated a moment, then 
shrugged her shoulders in contempt and said : " Oh ! yes, she is an 
hysterical woman." — "Well 1 how do you like her?" — " Oh ! she is a 
fool." 

Most of the hallucinations produced in this way, do not stop at 
this simple state, but awaken secondary series of ideas or manias, which 
further develop and disclose the consequences of the hallucinations, 
exactly as in the mentally deranged. 

As there are onesided (unilateral) illusions in thy insane, so that, 
for instance, they see a vision with only one eye, hear a sound with only 
one ear, so unilateral hallucinations can also be produced by suggestion. 
For instance, the one hypnotized is made to believe, that on a blank 
paper he perceives a picture with his right eye only. If his right eye 
is closed and the left one is open, he then does not see the picture ; and 
the same can be reversed. Upon waking, the illusory picture remains, 
but only to the right eye. To the left the paper appears entirely 
blank. This interesting experiment can be made still more compli- 
cated. Corresponding senses may receive dissimilar and opposite 
hallucinations. For instance, you say to the right ear : the weather is 
pleasant, the sun shines brightly ; and to the other ear : it is raining 
and it is unpleasant weather. The right half of the face then smiles 
while the left looks sullen. To the right ear, a rustic festival with 
merry young persons is discribed, but the left one is told that an 
angry dog is barking. The same difference as before in the two halves 
of the face. The hypnotized person can be made to believe that every 
thing looks red to his right eye. A piece of white paper will then 
appear red to the right eye, white to the left eye, and pink to both eyes 
If one eye is made to see red and the other green or blue, a compound 
color will not appear to both eyes, but alternately red, green or blue. 

We now arrive at some still more wonderful phenomena of halluci- 
nation which the science of the present day has not been able to explain. 
Although an optical illusion seem to be fixed only in the brain of the 
one who sees it, and lacks all reality, all fixation, yet it seems as if the 
hallucinator possessed a certain power of giving the image some kind 
of physical fixation in reality. The following facts, properly, vouched 
for by scientists, yet incomprehensible, testify to this. We return to 
the example with the imagined portrait on a blank sheet of paper. 
Take a clean piece of white paper, which is alike on both sides, and so 



HYPNOTISM. 51 

free from all marks that the underside cannot be distinguished from 
the upper. Put it before the hypnotized person and make him believe 
that he sees a portrait drawn on the paper. Turn the paper, and he 
will not see any picture on the other side, unless he is made to believe 
that he also sees an image there — which should not be done in this 
experiment. Always remember which side was first turned up, and how- 
ever deceptive the turning of the paper may be, it will y et be found 
that he never mistakes the two sides, nor ever sees the picture on the 
wrong side, nor ever fails to see it on the right one. Nor does he 
mistake the position of the picture ; if the paper is turned upside down, 
he sees the picture standing on its head ; if it is turned side-ways, the 
picture is lying horizontally. It is evident that all changes of the 
position of the paper are done so that he cannot in any ordinary way 
notice it, either behind his back, or while his eyes are blindfolded- 
He always places the picture according to the first suggestion. 

Another experiment made by Fere is not less wonderful. 

On a piece of white paper, he placed a white visiting-card, whose 
outlines he followed with a blunt pen, in the air, close to the paper, 
without leaving any trace of the lines, but he made the hypnotized 
individual believe that he drew black lines on the paper. After the 
patient had been wakened, he was asked to fold the paper where the 
fictitious lines were. He held it at the same distance from his eyes as 
it had been during the hypnosis, and folded it in a rectangle minutely 
corresponding to the card, which now he w ; as not allowed to see. 

A similar experiment has been performed many times by Charcot 
h>efore a number of pupils. On a blank white cardboard, he produces 
by suggestion to the hypnotized person the image of a portrait. Then 
he mixes this piece among a dozen blank cardboards of the same kind 
and appearance. He wakens the sleeper, and without saying any- 
thing about the portrait, he asks her to look through the blank cards ; 
upon doing so she finds, to her astonishment, one that has a portrait, 
and she gives the same description of it as during the hypnosis. 

In the present status of the science, this wonderful power of 
seeing can hardly be explained in any other way, than that the image 
on the paper must be connected by some association of ideas with 
some mark on the paper, some spot, uneveness, etc., which causes the 
right side and its correct original position to be always recognized, 
although the marks are so diminutive that they cannot be traced by 
ordinary eyes. But at the same time it must be stated that this 
explanation is not satisfactory ; for it is only the experimentalist, w r ho 
thinks of such a mark and has occasion to make it. The hypnotized 
person has no reason for such a precaution, when he only stares at the 
image and by no means dreams of the experiments to follow. 

If a spiritualist were asked to explain this mystic phenomenon, he 
would immediately have on hand an answer that would solve the 



52 HYPNOTISM. 

enigma: his doctrine of "materialization'' — if it were only true. For 
lie claims in the human spirit, as in the absolute Spirit of the universe, 
a certain creative power, and he does not consider it imposssible, that 
the optical illusion of man, when projected from the eye to the paper, 
deposits there a fine ethereal substance, which, imperceptible to 
ordinary eyes, is yet easily detected by sight sharpened by hypnotism. 
The spiritualist would even believe in the possibility of transmitting 
this image to a sensitive photographic plate, which would of course be 
the best proof of its physical reality. It must be reserved for future 
science to solve this enigma; the science of to-day can only acknowl- 
edge its want of power in this respect. 

However, we cannot leave the question of hallucinations without 
glancing at the very important experiments which have been made in 
the optics of hallucination so-called, or the relation of optical illusions. 
to the ordinary laws of optics. One would naturally believe that the 
hallucinations are so immaterial, so connected with the sphere of the 
imagination in the central parts of the brain, so wanting in reality, 
that the realistic laws just mentioned would not in the least have any 
application to them. Until now, optical illusion has always been 
explained as if it were an internal image in the brain, which arises 
either in the central visual centre in the cortical substance of the 
brain, or at least is not found further away than on the retina of the 
eye, and as if the apparent external image were only constructed by an 
act of thinking in the brain — a perception, an imagination — which,, 
when it is accustomed to receive all sight- impiessions from the 
external world, upon judging about the place of the image, projects the 
hallucination-image outward, as it does every image from the real 
external world. In both cases, the projecting is a mere action of 
thinking, which, as such, cannot cast any rays into the world from the 
internal image in the brain. Thus the real image and the illusory one 
are alike in this respect ; but the difference is, that the real external 
image throws real rays into the eye, whereas no such rays are thrown 
into the illusory internal image in the brain. Then, as the illusory 
image has no real rays of light, either entering or emerging, it seems 
as if this image w r ould be entirely independent of the laws of real 
reflection and refraction. But that is not the case ; and here we meet 
new and wonderful phenomena, which are very difficult to explain. 

We know, that in seeing with both eyes at the same time, every 
object would appear double, unless the eyes were always placed, so 
that the visual rays converge and meet on the object. If, on the other 
hand, the eyes are directed so that the visual rays, or the prolonged 
axes of the eyes cross each other before or behind the object, then two 
images arise ; the person sees double, as in strabismus, or when the 
rays that go to one eye are refracted through a prism. Hence, if an 
object is steadily looked at with both eyes so that it appears single, two 



HYPNOTISM. 53 

images arise if one eye is pushed inward so that an artificial strabismus 
is produced ; if the finger yields, the object again appears single. Brews- 
ter tried this simple experiment on a person who suffered from visual 
hallucinations, and to his great astonishment, he found that in this 
way he doubled the imaginary picture, the imaginary object. This 
observation has been corroborated by several physicians. ' Ball, of 
Paris, had in his clinic a hysterical woman, who, during an ecstatic 
crisis, saw the holy virgin in a luminous dress ; if one of her eyelids 
was pressed obliquely she saw two such madonnas. , Instead of 
pressure by the finger, Fere has used a prismatic glass before one eye 
to double the visual hallucination; and he has calculated that the 
distance between the images has' exactly corresponded to the power of 
refraction of the prism ! For instance, he made the Hypnotized indi- 
vidual believe that he saw on an empty table the profile of a portrait. 
Upon awaking, he saw the same picture, and was greatly astonished 
that the portrait was doubled, when F. placed before one eye a prism 
of whose qualities he had no idea. And even supposing that perhaps 
he saw that the glass was a prism and that he jn'eviously knew its 
power of doubling the image, he could not possibly know the index of 
refraction of the prism, and of his own accord so place the distance 
between the images, that it precisely corresponded to the power of 
refraction of the prism. If the base of the prism was placed upward, 
he saw one image over the other. 

Also other glasses exert their specific influence over the visionary 
image. An opera-glass approaches or distances the image, according* 
to which end is placed before the eye. The glasses must also be 
differently adjusted for the near-sighted and for the far-sighted, to 
enable both to see the image. — If a magnifying glass is placed before the 
image, this is enlarged. A microscope also enlarges the outlines of the 
illusory image ; but investigators have as yet failed to produce by 
microscope any fine details, which are not seen by the naked eye ; and 
that would be rather too much ! With a mirror placed in the right 
position, a reflection of the visionaiy image has also been produced. 
That the hypnotized person, himself, does not know that the other 
image is a reflection may be seen by the following experiment. The 
hypnotized one is made to believe, that he sees a butterfly on a table 
that stands before a mirror. He immediately exclaims: "But there 
are two!*' He is asked to catch them. First, he pierces the nearest 
one by a pin ; then he tries to catch the image in the mirror, which is 
somewhat farther away, but he hits his hand against the glass ; he 
renews the attempt, but says finally: "I cannot catch the other one!" 
Another experiment with the mirror is also convincing. If a hypno- 
tized person is made to believe that he is reading- a couple of lines, 
written or printed on blank white paper, and if a mirror is put on 
one side of the inscription, he will see two inscriptions, but will express 



54 HYPNOTISM. 

his astonishment that the new inscription is reversed, so that it must 
be read like Hebrew from right to left. If the mirror is placed above 
the writing, he sees the other image upside down ; but this writing is 
read from left to right. There are not many who realize that all 
reflected images are in reality just like this. 

The attempts to shut the illusory images out by means of a screen 
have varied so much in their outcome that no definite results can as 
yet be quoted. 

How are we to explain this apparent genuineness of the illusory 
image, which even stands the test of the laws of optics'? The only 
possible explanation of the above-mentioned, well-proved facts, which 
has as yet been tried by science, is that the hallucinate singles out 
some point in reality — a "point de repere " — which afterwards serves 
to guide him. The hallucinate would be immovably bound to this 
mark, and as the mark is subject to the laws of optics, so the hallu- 
cinate must also be subject to them. As a support to this theory, 
Binet and Fere relate a strange story from La Salpetriere (Charcot's 
clinic) in Paris. 

A woman in the somnambulistic state was shown a view of the 
Pyrenees with some donkeys climbing the slopes, and she was told: 
"This is your portrait; you are entirely naked." Upon awaking she 
happened to look at the same picture, and enraged at seeing her own 
image in such a nude condition, she tore the picture to pieces. But 
two photographs of the picture had already been taken and carefully 
hidden. Every time either of these photographs were shown to her- 
she became enraged ; for she always saw in the photograph her own 
naked image, and this hallucination remained unchanged for two years. 
From this the consequence has been drawn that the view of the 
Pyrenees was only a mark, a point de repere, which always produced 
her own visionary image. .This is at least an evident mark; but what 
should be said about the application of this theory to the white card- 
board, which did not seem to have any marks ? And yet Binet and 
Fere once succeeded with the following experiment. 

After they had produced a visionary portrait on a white card 
board, they took a photograph of the blank card-board, and the halluci- 
nator saw the same portrait on the photograph, but not on other 
card-boards apparently just as bare. Here the imperceptible mark 
would also be photographed, if the theory is correct. 

But we put the explanation aside and proceed to a new optical 
experiment, which proves that the optic laws are also valid in other 
respects in visual hallucination. Easy as it may be to produce by 
suggestion any color in an object, yet it is absolutely impossible to 
make a color-blind somnambulist see the color to which he is blind. 
If he is red-blind in one eye, a red visual hallucination cannot be 
produced to this eye, though it may be to the other. Visual hallucina- 



HYPNOTISM. 55 

tion also follows the laws of contrasts and complementary colors. If 
for instance, a white paper, divided into two halves by a line through 
the middle, is put before a somnambulist, and he is told that the 
right half is red, he will of his own accord see the green complemen- 
tary color on the left half, without being told, and without having any 
previous idea that a complementary color would appear and that this 
should be green. This proves, among other things, that no deceit or 
simulation has any part in the play. 

Many more optical observations have been made, but we have 
already lingered long enough on the visual hallucinations. There only 
remains to tell something about their duration. For the above-named 
general rule, that the memory of w r hat has been experienced during 
hypnosis ceases upon waking, does not hold good with regard to all 
visual hallucinations. Some are totally forgotten ; others can remain 
ior a long time — as we have seen, even for years. Some describe how 
the vision fades and disappears even during the sleep ; in others, 
this fading takes place shortly after waking. In some, this disappear- 
ance causes great sorrow and regret, just as a pleasant dream is missed 
upon waking to a dreary reality. Bernheim mentions a patient, who, 
upon waking, can still see her visionary rings, bracelets and other cost, 
ly ornaments, but who grows quite sad, when she sees one after 
another disappear; and asks that she may keep them. 

Another one is surprised at finding that the imaginary photo- 
graphic pictures on blank card-boards grow paler from day to day, and 
finally disappear, but concludes that the photographs must have been 
poorly fixed. Even though it be stated, both before and after the 
suggestion, that it concerns only an imagination, the hallucination will 
yet often be quite obstinately retained. Thus, F. declared to his 
patient before she was hypnotized, that she was going to have a 
vision, which, upon awaking, she ought to reject w 7 ith all her might, as 
something not real. That did not help ; she still saw on the bare table 
a ten-franc piece of gold with its bust of Napoleon. — "But we have 
made an agreement with reference to this illusion ; for you know that 
the gold piece is not real ! " — She appeared quite astonished and said ; 
" But I see and feel the gold piece ; " — and she could not be convinced. 

Generally, however, the hallucination disappears if the patient is 
told in a determined w r ay that he has seen nothing, heard nothing, felt 
nothing, etc. Also the approach of a magnet usually destroys the 
hallucination. In obstinate cases it must be removed during a new 
hypnosis. 

We will mention still another queer kind cf hallucination. A real 
object can be so obliterated by an imaginary one of the same kind, 
that the hypnotized individual loses all sense of the former. For 
instance, a real bottle standing on a table, was shown to a somnambu- 
list; it was then removed, but she was told that it still remained. 



56 HYPNOTISM. 

Upon awaking, she saw only the imaginary bottle ; the real one could 
be held before her eyes and she did not see it ; put into her hand and 
she did not feel it ; struck with a key and yet she did not notice it. 
Her perception of the real bottle was paralyzed by her perception of 
the imaginary one. 

We have lingered long on the visual hallucinations, because these 
are best adapted to illustrate the general qualities of all hallucinations. 
In the same manner, the most varied hallucinations, both positive and 
negative, of the other senses, can be produced by suggestion. Space 
here forbids the quoting of more instances; we will instead proceed to 
a still more important point, viz.: the influence of suggestion upon still 
higher spheres within mental life — upon the will and actions. 



The change from illusions to suggestive actions is so much the 
easier, since the latter often have their immediate origin in the 
former. Generally, however, it is customary, in hypnotic experiments 
to directly prescribe an action by a verbal or written suggestion. 

The order should be direct and decided. For instance, if I say: 
"If I had a watch, I would see what time it is," that has no effect; 
but if I say : " Let me see what time it is," the somnambulist pulls out 
his watch. Obedience is generally very precise. If I point out to the 
somnambulist a spot on a plane surface, one that is invisible, and that 
I, myself, can find only by minute, complicated measuring, and if I 
order him to drive a knife through that spot, when he awakes, he 
■ — dashes the knife without hesitation into precisely the right spot. A 
criminal action would be performed as punctually. 

As we have before mentioned, a somnambulist is not an entirely 
dependant automaton; he has intelligence enough of his own to 
reach the aim of the prescribed action. He succeeds without neces- 
sarily being told how to proceed. For instance, the somnambulist is 
given a glass of water; she is made to believe that ifc contains poison, 
and she is told to poison a certain person with it. She gets no further 
orders. Afterwards, when she offers the glass, she says of her own 
accord, if, for instance, it is summer: "It is so hot to-day; would'nt 
you like a drink?" One, who was ordered to take a handkerchief, out 
of another's pocket, pretended that she was about to faint, staggered 
to and fro, and fell on the chosen victim, so that she could easily get 
at the handkerchief. Another, who had the same commission, went 
up and asked: "What have you on your hands V and while the victim 
was looking at her hands, the theft was performed. 

But such blind obedience is not always found in the somnam- 
bulists. Sometimes they are disobedient and make considerable re- 
sistance. The cause of this rests either with the hypnotizer or with, 
the patient. The authority the former exerts over the latter depends 
partly on his personality and the influence he generally exerts over 






HYPNOTISM. 57 

his patient, partly upon the decision and severity with which at the 
time he has pronounced his order. If this is done with hesitation and 
too gently, the patient becomes hesitating and irresolute, when it is 
to be performed. But the opposition can also depend on the degree 
of firmness in the character of the patient, as also upon the quality 
of the ordered action. So much of his own personality remains in the 
somnambulist, that his inner nature, when good and peaceable, resists 
a prescribed crime. Only a cataleptic individual is a machine, a blind 
tool, without a will ; the somnambulist is a person whose opposition 
can often be rather embarrassing to the operator. Even from the 
different motives, which the somnambulists give as reason for refusing 
to commit a crime, their true character can be understood. Order a 
theft, and one may answer: "I do not wish to steal, I am no thief," 
whereas another naively answers: "No, I might be seen.' 1 A third 
makes only slight objection and soon yields. For instance, "Go and 
stab that doctor! " — "Why? He has not done me any harm ! " — "Yes! 
you must do it ; I order it ! " — " Well, since I have to, I suppose I 
must ! " — Wakened, she looks at her victim with a treacherous smile, 
goes a few times around him, and suddenly dashes at him with the 
imaginary dagger which has been put into her hand. But the same 
person could by no means be made to do any harm to a person whom 
she loved. One could not be made to say his prayers ; nor another 
to sing a mocking eong which she had composed about the doctor ; 
a third could not be made to sign a note for one million, although she 
signed notes for smaller sums without resistance. 

One who performs an action on account of suggestion, is com- 
pletely ignorant of the real motive of the act. He feels an irresistible 
impulse, which he cannot comprehend nor explain. Usually, the action 
is performed without further reasoning; but sometimes he tries to 
create some motive. He believes himself to act voluntarily, he is 
ignorant of the outside will that governs him. We borrow a couple of 
instances from Richet, who has more closely studied these occurrences. 
A woman was hypnotized and told to remove the lamp-shade. 
Wakened she said " You can not see well in this room ; " and she took 
off the shade. Another time she was told that upon waking, she 
should put a great deal of sugar in her tea. When the tea was served 
she filled her cup half full of sugar. — " What are you doing?" — " I am 
taking sugar." — " But so much ! " — " Certainly, and I shall take more," 
and she put in more sugar. Afterwards, she found the tea abomin- 
able, but said: "What then? It was foolish? have you never done 
anything, foolish ? " Charcot's clinic furnishes the case of a somnam- 
bulist who was ordered to assassinate a strange doctor by means of a 
slip of card-board. As soon as she awoke, she assaulted her victim and 
stabbed the card-board dagger to the region of his heart. The doctor 
made believe that he fell. — "But why have you killed him?" — With 



58 HYPNOTISM. 

wild aspect, she answered: "He is an old pig! He had wicked 
designs against me." 

We have already remarked, that, although the memory of occur- 
rences during hypnosis generally ceases upon waking, yet the halluci- 
nation, caused by suggestion, remains, as does also the impulse to 
action, imparted in the same way ; that this impulse lies completely 
hidden from consciousness and memory, until the time prescribed for 
the action has arrived ; and that by suggestion the operator can thus 
cause an action on a certain future day and hour. Here we shall 
consider somewhat more fully this wonderful phenomenon corroborated 
by many. 

In modern times it was principally Riehet, who brought this 
phenomenon into prominence (in Revue Philosophique, March 1883.) 
He gives the following instance. " After B. had been hypnotized, I 
used to say to her : ' You will return to me on this day or that, at 
this hour or that.' She remembered nothing of this, when she awoke, 
but said of. her own accord : ' When shall I return 1 ' — ' Whenever you 
can ; some day next week.' — 'At what hour ? ' — ' At any hour you like/ 
— With astonishing precision, she always returned on the day and 
hour that I had prescribed during the hypnosis, although she did not 
remember anything, when she awoke. Even if the time were ever so 
inconvenient, she came at the appointed hour. Once when she 
arrived, she said : 'I do not know why • I came now ; the weather 
is terrible ; I have company at home ; I have been running to get 
here ; I have no time to stay, but must immediately return to my 
callers. It is too silly! I do not understand why I came here. Can it 
be by some magnetism? ' " 

Beaunis relates the following, suggestion with an interva, of 171 
days. 

"In the afternoon of the 14th of July, 1884, I hypnotized Miss E., 
and gave her the following suggestion: "On the first of January, 
1885, at 10 A. M., you will see me; I shall come to wish you a happy 
New-Year; after that is done I shall immediately disappear" — I did 
not mention this suggestion to anybody. Miss E. lives in Nancy. I 
was myself in Paris on the first of January, 1885. That day, Miss E. 
told a friend, a physician and several other persons, that on the same 
day, at 10 A. M., when she was in her room, she heard somebody 
knocking at the door. She said: 'Come in! ' and to her astonishment 
saw me enter, and heard me with a cheerful voice wish her a Happy 
New Year. I immediately went out; she at once hastened to the 
window to see me leave the house, but did not see any further trace of 
me. To her surprise, she also noticed that I, at that season, had 
come to her in a summer dress. (The same clothes that I wore at the 
time of the suggestion.) Her attention was in vain called to the fact 






HYPNOTISM. 59 

that I was in Paris on the first of January, and could not have come to 
her on that day. Nevertheless she maintained that she had seen and 
heard me, and she is still convinced of that, in spite of my declarations 
that it was impossible." 

This suggestion was thus fulfilled in every particular after 171 
days ; and Beaunis claims that it would have succeeded after a still 
longer time, even after several years. 

Liegeois has succeeded with a suggestion of one year's duration. 
On October 12, 1885, he hypnotized in Nancy a young man, Paul M. 
already before subjected to hypnotic experiments. At 10.10 A.M., he 
told him during the hypnosis that the following would happen to him 
on the same day one year later. "You will go to Monsieur Liebault 
in the morning. You will say, that your eyes have been well for a 
whole year, and that for that you are indebted to him and to M. 
Liegeois. You will express your gratitude to both, and you will ask 
permission to embrace both of them, which they will gladly allow you 
to do. After that, you will see a dog and a trick monkey enter the 
doctor's room, one carrying the other. They will play various pranks 
and make grimaces, and it will greatly amuse you. Five minutes later, 
you will behold a trainer with a tame bear. This man will be rejoiced 
to find his dog and his monkey, which he thought he had lost ; in 
order to please the company, he will let his bear dance also — an 
American grizzly bear, of large frame but very gentle — and you will 
not be afraid of him. Just as the man is about to leave, you will ask 
M. Liegeois to let you have ten centimes to give to the dog, who will 
beg, and you will give them to him yourself. " 

Liegeois and Liebault, at whose clinic the experiment was made, 
naturally kept the suggestion a secret, so that the somnambulist might 
not get any knowledge of it. 

One year later — on the twelfth of October, 1886 — Liegeois was at 
Liebault's before 9 A. M. At 9.30, as nobody had arrived, the former 
considered the experiment a failure and returned to his rooms. But 
at ten minutes past ten, the youth, Paul, who had better remembered 
the hour, came to Liebault and thanked him, but also asked for Lie- 
geois. The latter arrived immediately, called by a messenger. Paul 
arose, rushed to meet him, and thanked him also. In the presence 
of fifteen or twenty reliable witnesses, the hallucinations now clearly 
developed themselves in Paul as they had been predicted one year 
before. Paul saw a monkey and a dog enter ; he was amused by 
their antics and grimaces. Then he saw the dog approach him, hold- 
ing a box in his mouth. Paul borrowed ten centimes from Liegeois 
and made a gesture as if to give them to the dog. Then the trainer 
came and took away the monkey and the dog. But no bear appeared. 
Nor did Paul think of embracing any one. With the exception of 
ihese two details, the suggestion had thus been fulfilled. The experi- 



60 HYPNOTISM. 

ment was ended. Paul complained of slight nervous weakness. In 
order to restore him, L. hypnotized him; but took the opportunity 
during the hypnosis, to ask for information about what had just hap- 
pened. — " Why did you just now see that monkey and that dog?" — 
•'Because you gave me suggestion of it on the twelfth of October, 
1885." — "Have you not mistaken the hour? I thought I said at 9 A. 
M." — "No, it is you who remember wrong. You did not hypnotize me 
on the sofa I am now occupying, but on the one opposite. Then you 
let me follow you out into the garden, and asked me to return in one 
year; just then it was ten minutes past ten, and it was at that hour 
that I returned." — "But why did you not see any bear, and why did 
you not embrace Liebault and me?" — "Because you told me that only 
once, whereas you repeated the rest twice." 

All those present were struck with the precision of his answers, 
and Liegeois had to acknowledge that Paul's memory was better than 
his own. Awakened after ten or fifteen minutes, Paul was entirely 
calm and had no remembrance of what he had just said during the 
hypnosis, nor did he remember what happened before the hypnosis 
in consequence of the suggestion of October 12th, 1885. 

Many other reliable authorities might be quoted for such post- 
hypnotic suggestion, or '• suggestion a lo?igue echea?ice n as the French 
call it. Here is an instance from Bernheim. 

Miss G. was given the suggestion that, five days later at the 
doctor's regular visit, she would complain of headache. That came true. 
Another day he said to her: — "In six days, in the night between Thurs- 
day and Friday, you will see the nurse come to your bed and pour cold 
water over your legs." On the following Friday, she loudly complained 
that the nurse had poured cold water on her legs during the night. 
The nurse was called, but natually denied it. He then said to the 
patient: — "It was a dream, for you know how I make you have 
dreams ; the nurse has done nothing." — She emphatically declared, 
that it was no dream ; for she had clearly seen it, felt the water, and 
become wet. 

Another case was for a still longer time. In August, B. said to 
the somnambulist S. formerly a sergeant : — " What day of the first 
week in October will you be at leisure? " — "On Wednesday." — "Well 
on the first Wednesday of October you will go to Dr. Liebault ; at his 
house you will meet the President of the Republic, who will give you 
a medal and a pension." — "I will go there." — Upon waking he did not 
remember anything of it. B. met him several times, and gave him 
other suggestions in the meantime, but did not speak any more of this 
one. On the third of October, or sixty-three days after the sugges- 
tion, B. received from Liebault a letter with contents as follows: 
"The somnambulist S., was here to-day at ten minutes before 11. 
Upon entering, after he had bowed to M. F., who was in his way, he 






HYPNOTISM. 61 

turned to the left to my library, bowed respectfully in a direction 
where there was nobody, uttered the word 'Excellency,' stretched out 
his right hand, and said: — 'I thank your Excellency!' I asked to 
whom he talked— 'To the President of the Bepublic.' — No one was 
there. Once more he turned in the same direction, bowed respectfully 
and went away. Those who saw him, asked me if the man was in- 
sane. I assured them that he was as sane as they or I, but that 
another person acted through him." 

Some days afterward, when B. met the sergeant, the latter 
declared, that the idea of going to Dr. L. had come over him quite 
suddenly on the third of October at 10 A. M. ; that he had not had 
the slightest thought of it during the preceding days, and that he did 
not have any idea w T hom he was going to meet at Ls. 

Still another case from Bernheim. "On Saturday December 22, 
after having hypnotized Miss G, I said to her: "Three weeks from 
Tuesday — that is in twenty-five days — when I pass your bed during 
my mornings rounds, you will see in my company Monsieur V. P. 
You will give him a detailed account of your disease, and you will talk 
with him of things that interest you." Upon waking, she remembered 
nothing, did not speak of it, nor even mention anything to the pupils. 
During the interval, she received many other suggestions and had her 
picture taken in various attitudes. On Tuesday, January 15, during 
my rounds, I stopped as usual at her bed ; she looked to the left and 
bowed respectfully : 'Ah! it is Monsieur V. P.' After some moments 
she answered an imaginary question : ' Well, I ftel very much better ; 
I have no more pain ; unfortunately my knee is sprained ; and I cannot 
walk except with an apparatus. She heard a new question and 
answered : ' Thank you very much ; you know that I have nursed Mr 
B's child. If you would recommend me to him, he could get me a 
place in an infirmary.' She heard his imaginary answer, thanked him, 
bowed, and followed with her eyes the image of my colleague all the 
way to the door. — ' Did you know that Monsieur V. P. would come 
to-day? ' — ' Certainly not ' — she had no previous idea of it." 

The following experiment with the same woman shows some 
remarkable characteristics of the somnambulistic memory and associa- 
tion of memories. 

" One day her picture was taken, while she was awake ; she was 
hypnotized and photographed in different attitudes of suggestion — 
such as anger, fear (she saw a snake), hilarity (she was intoxicated), 
contempt (for joking students), and ecstasy. Some days afterwards 
B. said to her during hypnosis : ' When you awake, you will open the 
book that is lying on your pillow, and there you will find your 
picture.' (In reality, there was no picture in the book.) Upon 
awaking, she takes the book, opens it, immediately finds her picture, 
and asks to be allowed to keep it, in order to send it to her son. — 'Do 



62 HYP NO TISM. 

you find it good?' — 'Very good! I have a serious expression.' — 
'Well, turn the leaf.' — She turns it and finds another portrait — one 
in which she has the expression of anger. She continues to look, in 
the book, and finds all the photographs taken with the different 
expressions — of fear, joy, contempt and ecstasy. With perfect exact- 
ness she describes every attitude, that she had taken when photo- 
graphed during the hypnosis, without now remembering that she had 
been photographed in these attitudes, and she became very much 
astonished, when I told her of it." 

The above instances are sufficiently clear and are based upon suf- 
ficiently reliable authority to prove fully that an idea, inspired even 
long before, during hypnotic sleep, reappears spontaneously in the 
brain at a certain time, without appearing to memory or consciousness 
during the whole interval. Nay! This hidden, latent memory seems 
to be much surer, much more reliable, than the wakeful one, which 
very easily forgets details that are minutely preserved by the latent,, 
somnambulistic memory. 

How shall we explain this strange phenomenon 1 That is no easy 
matter. For this purpose, the brain has been compared to an alarm 
clock, which can be arranged so that it rings and wakens the sleeper 
at a certain minute. The mechanism of the brain, however, is not so 
simple. The difference is too wide. The alarm must continuously 
incessantly and exclusively work for its aim, in order to reach it, the 
way of the wheels can be followed, cog by cog, second by second, until 
the alarm rings. In the brain only the terminal points can be observed 
— the beginning and the end, the setting and the " striking;" — but no 
intervening work is seen; and to judge by all the signs there is none. 
The brain seems to work on thousands of other ideas during the inter- 
val, but not on the suggested idea, which at the proper time seems to 
come like lightening from a clear sky. We must acknowledge our 
complete inability to explain this : we can only point out that something- 
similar is to be found m those who have the power of waking from 
natural sleep at a desired hour, although the sleep will then be uneasy 
and light, and the waking is generally not so punctual as in the case in. 
question. Moreover, dogs are often in the habit of reminding their 
masters of the right time for an undertaking, if the hour is neglected. 

Negative suggestion are those which manifest themselves by a 
lessened or suppressed activity of the nervous system, whether it be in 
lameness, insensibility, dullness of the senses, or suppressed will; 
inability to think, talk, act, etc. This kind of phenomena has also been 
called psychic paralysis. 

We have seen how every sense can be separately hypnotized and 
neutralized, how persons can be made insensible, blind, deaf, etc.; but 
by suggestion "systematized ancesthesis," so-called, can also be 
produced ; that is, several senses can be hypnotized at one time, the 



HYPNOTISM. 63 

total effect of which is, that a person can be made wholly to disappear 
to a somnambulist, so that the latter neither sees, hears, feels, nor in 
any way perceives the presence of the other. In this way a person 
present can even be made partially to disappear, so that only his head, 
arms, hands, or feet become perceptible ; and the queerest situations 
can thus be caused ; or the somnambulist can be made to perceive 
an object or a person with one sense, and not with the other, — so, for 
instance, that he hears a person standing beside him but does not see 
him ; but does not feel his touch. The following is an experiment by 
Beaunis and Liegeois, performed in the presence of Liebault and a 
number of others. 

Liegeois made Mrs. A. believe, that, upon awaking, she would 
neither see nor hear Beaunis, but that she would feel his touch and 
remain "en rapport" with him by this alone. This came true. When 
she awoke, B. sat down directly in front of her ; she did not see him. 
He spoke to her, she did not answer. He took her hand and she 
immediately recognized him. She saw, heard, and spoke with the 
other persons present. B. made some passes so that she went to 
sleep. Now she was " en rapport " with B. only ; she heard him and 
spoke to him, but did not see or hear any of the others. Liegeois 
spoke to her; she did not hear him. L. tried to wnken her — it was 
impossible ! Beaunis wakened her, but everything was as before ; she 
neither saw nor heard B., while she saw and heard all the others, and 
was conscious of B. only by the touch. Not until Liegeois had 
banished the negative suggestion which he had given her, did she see 
and hear Beaunis. The same experiment was repeated several times 
in the same way, except that other persons were made the objects of 
her negative perception, and always with the same success. 

Binet and Fere quote another experiment of the same kind. 

During the sleep, they made the patient believe that, upon waking, 
she would not see one of them, viz. Fere, but that she would still 
hear his voice. When she awoke, F. placed himself in front of her ; 
she did not look at him. He gave her his hand ; she did not move. 
Soon she expressed her astonishment that she did not see F., who 
was but just now in the room, and asked where he had gone — "He 
has gone out; you may now go to your chamber." — F. placed himself 
in front of the door. The patient, arose, said good bye, and went 
toward the door. When she was about to open it she stumbled against 
F's invisible body. This unexpected shock made her tremble. Once 
more she tried to advance, but when she met the same invisible and 
inexplicable obstruction, she grew frightened- and refused to approach 
the door again. They then took a hat from the table and showed it 
to her; she convinced herself, with both eyes and hands, that it was a 
real hat; then they put the hat on F's head. She saw the hat, but as 
if floating in the air; nothing could describe her astonishment. F. 



64 HYPNOTISM. 

took his hat off and bowed with it several times ; and her astonishment 
grew still greater, when she saw the curves that the hat described in 
the air, without seeing any one holding it. She declared that it could 
be explained by physics, and believed that the hat was suspended by 
a thread. She climbed a chair to feel of the thread, but she did not 
find any. They put an overcoat on F. ; she saw the coat in the air, 
taking the shape of a human body, and was still more astonished ; and 
she said: "It is like a hollow dummy." The invisible F. now per- 
formed several tricks with furniture and other objects, which to her 
appeared to move by themselves. Articles of furniture moved about 
in confusion and then put themselves in the right places again ; pieces 
of a skull, which were spread over the floor, put themselves together 
and separated again ; a purse opened of itself and let out gold and 
silver coins. — They now made her sit down. "While she was talking 
to B., F. alternately touched her nose, cheek, forehead and chin. 
Every time, she put her hand to her face. Being asked why she did 
that, she said that she felt a peculiar itching in one place and another 
on the face, so that she had to scratch. This she took very calmly 
and found quite natural. She was then asked to strike the air with 
her fist. F. stopped her arm, just as she lifted it. — " What is it ? " — 
•"Oh! it feels just like cramp in the arm." She immediately found 
some explanation. 

Thus when, by negative suggestion, a person is made invisible to 
a, somnambulist, not only he, himself, disappears to the perception of 
the latter, but so also do his clothes, and even such things as he takes 
out of his pockets — such as his watch, handkerchief and key. 

But, some one might object, what proof have you that the som- 
nambulist does not really see or perceive in such cases 1 It might be a 
deception or a simulation ! 

Another experiment is convincing in that respect. 

It is known that a stroke of a gong immediately puts certain 
hysterical women into the catalepsy. Two such women were at Binet 
and Fere's quarters. They were hypnotized and made to believe that 
upon waking they would neither see nor hear the sound of the gong ; 
in other words, a hysterical anoethesia, with the gong as object was 
suggested to them. When they awoke, the gong was moved, right 
before their eyes, to a place close to their ears ; they did not show the 
usual fear of this instrument ; a violent blow was struck on it ; they 
did not move, they did not become cataleptic as usual. It was evident 
that they neither saw nor heard this large and loud-sounding instru- 
ment. One of them, however, showed slight surprise and said she 
seemed to have heard something — like a gust of wind in a stove. A 
reversed test was immediately made. They were again hypnotized ; 
they were again made sensitive to the gong by removal of the negative 
suggestion and when they awoke the instrument produced its custom- 
arv effect. 



HYPNOTISM. 65 

A negative suggestion may remain for days — even months — if it is 
not removed. Otherwise anoesthesia disappears of itself after some 
time, though not all at once, but only by degrees, so that the person 
or the object, which was made invisible, gradually comes forth as out 
of a mist, and is recognized at first dimly, then more clearly. In the 
above mentioned case, where Fere was made invisible, the patient, on 
the third or fourth day, first began to see that F. was a person ; but at 
first she took him for an entire stranger, whom she had never seen 
before, and not until later did she understand that it was Fere. 

Another experiment was only partially successful. A patient who 
was for the first time submitted to negative suggestion, was made to 
believe that, upon awaking, she would not see the assistant, C, whose 
name and appearance she knew well. Upon awaking, however, she 
saw C, but did not recognize him in the least. Shortly before, the 
same patient had been given the visual hallucination that she saw C's 
portrait on a blank piece of white paper. This paper was now given 
to her, and after she had several times compared the imaginary por- 
trait with the strange person she saw, she recognized that it was the 
assistant, C. 

But negative suggestion does not stop at these illusions, — it can 
also cause a complete delirium, of which the following may serve as an 
illustration. 

A patient was made to believe that she would not see Fere, but 
would hear his voice. Upon waking, when she heard F's voice, but did 
not see him, she began to search all over the room, asking anxious 
questions. She was then told: "F. is dead, but his soul is here; it 
is the latter that is speaking to you." — The intelligent woman would 
certainly have taken this for a joke, if she had been fully awake ; but 
under the influence of the suggestion she easily accepted the explana 
tion. Soon F. raised his voice again ; he said that he had died during 
the night, and that his corpse was removed to the morgue. The 
woman elapsed her hands and assumed a sad expression. She asked 
when he was going to be buried ; she desired to be present at the 
cememony. "Poor boy," she said, "he was not a bad man." F. 
sighed deeply and complained about the post-mortem examination of 
his body, which had already taken place. The scene began to be 
tragic. The woman became faint with emotion, threw herself back- 
ward, and began to have a hysterical attack, which, however, was 
immediately checked by pressure on the ovarian region. 

This case shows that those under the influence of a suggestion are 
not so much awake as they appear. Judgment and criticism are to a 
great extent suppressed by the suggestion, and the subject is as one in 
a dream, or like one temporarily insane. This condition may reason- 
ably be called an artificial insanity. 

That negative suggestion with reference to pain has a very great 
significance in therapeutics will be shown later. 



66 HYPNOTISM. 

Moreover the manor y can become the object of a negative sug- 
gestion, and total or partial loss of memory — amnesia — with reference 
to certain things and circumstances can be produced in this way. 

A common experiment of traveling magnetizers is to make a 
person forget his own name. The victim then makes the most comical 
effort to find it, but does not succeed. In the same way the somnam- 
bulist can be made to forget the year of his birth, the names of his 
nearest relatives, certain vowels, consonants, numbers, etc. ad 
infinitum. 

By suggestion the memory can be acted upon not only in a quan- 
titative direction, suppressing or strengthening it, but, what is worse, 
also in a qualitative respect, so that it can be changed; it can be given, 
another, a fictitious or false tenor. As hallucinations can be produced 
which first appear in the future, so retro-active hallucinations, so-called 
or hallucinations of memory can also be produced. For instance, the 
hypnotized person can be made to think that on a certain occasion he 
has witnessed this or that occurance, and in his memory these facts 
afterwards remain impressed with such vividness, that without hesi- 
tation he will tell them as the truth at a serious trial before a court. 
It is easy to imagine the dangerous conseuqences of such hallucinations 
if they are abused before a jury. 



The whole motor apparatus also may by degrees or all at once 
become the object of negative suggestion, and by this all kinds of 
lameness or paralysis can be caused. 

Also, independently of hypnotism, lameness has been found as 
the result of purely psychical causes. In 1869, Russel Reynolds, the 
prominent English physician, published a case of lameness in conse 
quence of spontaneous imagination of the sufferer ("dependent on 
idea"). A young girl lived alone with her father, who, after various 
sorrows and reverses, grew lame. In order to support the family the 
girl had to give lessons, and for this purpose had to walk long dis- 
tances. With anxiety she soon began to think that she also might 
become lame, and that their condition would then become still w-orse. 
Under the influence of this idea, which never left her, she began to 
feel her legs grow weaker and weaker, until she could no longer walk. 
R., who soon understood the cause, adopted an exclusively mental 
treatment ; he gradually convinced her that she was able to walk, 
and she soon became entirely well. (What an excellent case for a 
Boltzius !) 

Erb, the neurologist, also describes imaginary paralysis. 
Charcot, Bernheim, and others have, however, produced the 
greatest number of proofs of how easily paralysis is caused by hyp- 
notic suggestion. Here the lameness may be confined to one muscle, 
or to a whole limb, or to certain combined muscular movements con- 



HYPNOTISM. 67 

eerned in a certain action — such as sewing, writing, smoking, singing, 
speaking, playing on the piano, standing, walking, etc., etc. By nega- 
tive suggestion, such anoesthesia can be produced just as well as sys- 
tematized paralysis. It would take too much space further to discuss 
the many kinds of paralysis that can be caused, not only with reference 
to the external result, but also with reference to the internal mechan- 
ism. In the former respect, there are as many possibilities as there 
are ways of using all the muscles of the body. In the latter respect, 
there are a few important differences, which we have time merely 
to indicate here. Thus lameness, for instance, may arise from the 
paralyzing of one or* more muscles, so that they cannot perform any 
kind of movement ; another form of lameness is the paralysis in co- 
ordination, or the suspended co-operation of the muscles for a certain 
object, for instance, inability to write, "agraphia." where the muscles 
of the arm and hand can perform everything except the combined 
motions that are necessary for guiding the pen. Finally, the paralysis 
may be still more deep-seated in the centre of the nervous system, 
as when, by suggestion, I affect and suppress the will, cause want 
of will — " abulia," — when only the stimulus of the will is needed to 
make the muscles perform their work. All these kinds of paralysis 
are best removed in the same way that they are produced — by sug- 
gestion. 



We now proceed to a still more obscure sphere for the influence 
of the nervous system and suggestion on the human organism, viz. 
the sphere of vegetative life, the functions of organic life, embracing 
digestion, nutrition, growth, production of heat, circulation, secretion, 
etc. The hypnotic experiments have so much greater importance and 
significance in this branch, and are so much more convincing and pro- 
bative, as these functions are not dependent on the influence of the 
will, and hence do not leave room for any deceit or simulation which 
could make the experiment dubious. 

We begin with Beaunis' experiment of changing the beatings of 
the heart by suggestion. Both Liebault and Beaunis had noticed that 
by suggestion they could relieve palpitation and regulate the action of 
the heart in somnambulists. This subject B. submitted to strictly 
scientific investigation with the aid of tlie usual instruments of physi- 
ologists for recording the movements of the heart ; and he found clear 
proofs of the fact, that the heart could be made by suggestion to beat 
more slowly or more rapidly, probably by stimulating or paralyzing 
action on the inhibitory centers of the heart. 

Beaunis's next experiment in this respect was to cause, by sugges- 
tion, redness or congestion in a limited part of the skin. For this 
purpose he hypnotized Miss E., and told her that upon waking she 
would have a red mark on the spot which he then touched ; and he 



68 HYPNOTISM. 

placed liis finger on her forearm, but quite lightly, so that, in ordinary 
cases, a redness could not arise from the pressure. About ten minutes 
after her waking, a slight redness began to show itself on the forearm r 
at the place that he had touched; it gradually increased and by degrees 
disappeared, after having been visible for ten or fifteen minutes. By 
suggestion he could also make the mark remain from twenty-four to 
forty-eight hours, while she was closely watched so that she could not 
herself produce or preserve the red mark. 

We know that redness and pallor are caused by dilatation and 
contraction of the blood-vessels, and that these changes in the vessels 
are under the influence of the vaso-motor nerves ; but these nerves are 
not affected by the will; at least, not so that, in the wakeful state,, 
congestion or redness can be produced by the will alone in any desired 
part of the skin. To a certain extent, of course, the face can be made 
to blush or grow pale in connection with some affection ; and actors 
especially are in the habit of cultivating their power in this respect ; 
but from this it is a long step to the effect gained by suggestion, as 
mentioned above. 

But this is not all; by suggestion a much more heightened effect 
can be produced in this direction. The congestion may be carried 
still further — to a raised swelling of the skin, to a blister (as from 
Spanish flies), to bloody transpiration and bleeding, even to complete 
formation of a wound. Concerning this, Beaunis relates the following 
experiment, for the truth of which he vouches. A skilled physiologist 
and experienced experimentalist, he would not allow himself to be 
easily deceived. 

The experiments were made on a young girl — Elise F., — first by 
Facachon, then also by Beaunis. One day, when Elise complained of 
a pain in the left groin, F. made her believe, after he had hypnotized 
her, that a blister would form on the aching spot, just as from a plaster 
of Spanish flies. The next morning, there appeared on the left groin 
a blister filled with serum, although nothing had been applied there. 

On another occasion, he cured neuralgia in the region of the 
right clavicle by merely causing, by suggestion, a blister resembling in 
every respect an ordinary burn. Afterwards several such experiments 
were successfully made on Elise. We quote only one, which was made 
under the closest control, before the eyes of several scientists — Beaunis, 
Liebault and others. On the twelfth of May, in 1885, Elise was 
hypnotized toward 11 A. M. On her back, at a point which the girl 
could not possibly reach with her hand, a strip of eight gummed 
stamps was fastened, after a strip of the same kind had for eighteen 
hours been applied to the arm of another person, without causing the 
slightest effect. Over the stamps an ordinary bandage was fixed, so as 
to simulate a plaster of Spanish flies, and she was three times given to 
understand that Spanish flies had been applied to her. She was close- 



HYPNOTISM. 69 

ly watched during the day and was locked up alone in her chamber 
over night, after she had been put in hypnotic sleep with the assertion 
that she was not going to awake until seven o'clock on the following 
morning, — which took place punctually. An hour later, F. removed 
the bandage in the presence of Bernheim, Liegeois, Liebault, Beaunis, 
etc. It was first ascertained that the stamps had not been disturbed. 
They were removed and the underlying surface of the skin now showed 
the following changes: on a space of four or five centimetres the 
epidermis was thicker, yellowish white and inflamed, but as yet not 
raised into blisters ; the surrounding skin showed intense redness and 
swelling to the extent of half a centimetre. The spot was covered with 
a dry compress, in order to be further investigated later on ; three 
hours after, the spot had the same appearance. At four P. M. the 
spot was photographed, and it now showed four or five blisters, which 
also plainly appeared in the photograph. These blisters gradually 
increased and secreted a thick, milky serum. On the twenty-eighth of 
May — fourteen days later — the spot was still in full suppuration. 

On the thirtieth of May, F. produced by suggestion another 
Spaniel fly blister on her arm. 

This case is not the only one. On another girl — Marie G. — who 
had for three months suffered greatly from neuralgia, F. produced by 
suggestion two such blisters in succession, each the size of a five-franc 
piece, one below the left ear, the other on the left temple. These 
required forty-eight hours to become fully developed. The neuralgia 
disappeared after twelve hypnotic seances. After these successes, F. 
tried on Elise an experiment in the opposite direction, that is, by nega- 
tive suggestion to make a real Spaniel fly plaster inactive. For this 
purpose a plaster w r as cut into three parts ; the first was applied to 
Elise's left arm, the second to her right arm, the third on a sick person 
who needed such treatment. Elise was hypnotized and F. made her 
believe that the plaster on her left arm would not have any effect. 
This took place at 11 A. M. Elise was closely watched until 8 P. M., 
when the bandage was removed, after F. had satisfied himself that it 
had not been disturbed. On her left arm the skin was unchanged, on 
her right the skin w r as red and showed the beginning of a formation of 
a blister. The plaster was again applied ; after three-quarters of an 
hour a normal blister was found on the right arm, but on the left — 
nothing. 

The third piece, which w 7 as placed on the abdomen of the other 
patient, had raised a large blister after eight hours. 

Several other physicians have related similar facts. As early as 
1840, Louis Prejalmini, the Italian physician, mentions similar experi- 
ments, when with " magnetized paper " he caused the same effect as 
with Spanish flies. It is evident that the active cause was not the 
magnetized paper, but the suggestion, or imagination. 



70 HYPNOTISM. 

By suggestion Damon tpallier (in 1885) produced not only local 
redness, but also a local increase of temperature of several degrees 
and Beaunis, by the some method, has produced general increase 
of temperature throughout the body, and perspiration. 

Bourru, Professor of Medicine in Kochefort, and Burot, of the 
same place, in this way caused nose-bleed and perspiration of blood in 
a hysterical man, who was paralyzed and without feeling in his right 
side. One of them wrote his name on the arms of the hypnotized 
man with a blunt instrument, and said : "To-day at 4 P. M. you will 
fall asleep and the lines which I have now drawn on your arms will 
bleed.'' At the prescribed time he went to sleep. On his left arm, the 
letters apppeared raised and very red, readily distinguishable from the 
surrounding pale skin, and from several of the strokes blood was 
dripping. On the arm which was paralyzed, nothing appeared. 

Dr. Mabille has since seen the same man several times during fits 
of hysteria, when he himself loudly ordered the arm to bleed, and the 
bleeding afterwards appeared. 

Still another experiment with the same man, and one witnessed by 
several physicians, is worth mentioning. He was hypnotized ; a letter 
was inscribed on his left wrist, with the order that he should imme- 
diately make it bleed. "It hurts," the patient said. — "Still you must 
bleed ! " — Then the muscles of the arm contracted; the forearm swelled; 
a letter appeared, red and raised ; drops of blood trickled out and were 
clearly seen by all present. The experiment only failed, in that the 
bleeding letter was not the one that had just been written, but another 
higher up on the arm, from a previous experiment. The suggestion 
may not have been clear enough in this respect. But this deviation 
from what was intended was so much the more favorable in one way, as 
through this, full guarantee was received that the congestion was at 
least not caused by reflex when the drawing took place on the skin. 

Charcot and his pupils have often produced real burns by sugges- 
tion. These are not developed immediately but several hours later. 

From the experiments quoted we now get a clear explanation of 
the stigmatization practiced during the Middle Ages, and even in mod- 
ern times — religious fanatics reproducing in their own persons the 
stigmata, or wounds made in the hands and feet of Jesus Christ by the 
nails which fastened him to the cross. For such marks can be produced 
by means of hypnotism, without deceit and without the miracles of 
higher powers. 

How sensitive the skin is to the slightest irritation from without or 
within is shown by the " artificial nettle-rash " (urticaria factitia), 
which can be produced in a few minutes — even in the form of raised 
names — by merely writing on the skin with a blunt instrument. The 
difference between this and the above-mentioned case consists princi- 
pally in this, that the nettle-rash is a result of a reflex irritation from 



HYPNOTISM. 71 

the skin on the vasomotor nerves, while the irritation by suggestion 
passes through the brain. 

Fere records the case of an hysterical woman who, even in the 
waking state could produce tumefaction in any part of the body by 
merely fixing her concentrated attention on it. 

The effect of suggestion upon several other organic functions has 
also been determined ; for instance, secretions can be increased or 
suppressed, — as urine, perspiration, tears, milk ; the menstrual flow can 
be increased or decreased. 

All these experiences in some degree corroborate and explain the 
great influence of imagination on various purely organic and vegetative 
changes in diseases ; they also explain the fully corroborated effect of 
such cures as the homoeopathic, Count Maffei's wonder-cures by mag- 
netized water, and other means in themselves indifferent. We will 
devote a separate chapter to the important role that imagination or 
suggestion plays in the curing of diseases. 



Mental suggestion. In our description of the many effects of 
hypnotism and of the wide influence of suggestion, we have arrived at 
imenomena more and more •wonderful and difficult to understand. 
Until now, however, we have been somewhat able to follow the natural 
ways suggestion chooses for imparting the ideas and will of one man to 
the brain of another. We now come to a group of phenomena in 
which the ordinary mental routes and stages in the journey of ideas 
from one brain to another are disregarded and the interval is passed 
with one leap — we refer to the effects of the so-called mental suggest- 
ions', which might be defined as transmissio?i of thought, and which, 
from a certain point of view, also embraces mind-reading. For, by 
" suggestion mentale," the French mean the operation by which thought, 
sensation, will, or any psychical force affects the brain of another, 
directly, in what may be called an immaterial manner, without mani- 
festing itself by anything perceptible to the external senses, — neither 
by words, looks, gesture, posture, etc., as in the forms of suggestion 
}:>reviously discussed. 

It is with a certain hesitation that we enter upon this as yet 
mysterious subject ; but it should be said of this and equally of mag- 
netism and hypnotism generally, that their abuse by charlatan and the 
knave must not obscure the real facts which a conscientious scientific 
investigation has brought to light ; and even though the explanation 
may be difficult, it is useless to deny and conceal facts of whose reality 
many experienced scientists and other sensible persons of the most 
civilized countiies are already convinced. 

Besides all the private experiments in families, where the control 
cannot be so satisfactory, there are especially three scientific societies, 
which have occupied themselves a great deal during the last few years 



72 HYPNOTISM. 

with this kind of phenomena, viz : The Society for Psychical Research 
in London ; in America, a society of the same name as the English one ; 
and in Paris, La Societe de Psychologic Psyologique. The first- 
named society counts among its members many prominent scientists, 
such as Balfour, Stewart, Barrett, Lodge and Thomson, all, professors 
of physics; Macalister, professor of anatomy; Adams, professor of 
astronomy ; Professor Lidgwick, A. R. Wallace, etc. In the French 
society, Janet, Richet, Ochorowicz, Beaunis and others have made sub- 
stantial contributions to our knowledge of this subject. 

In order to give the reader a clear conception of what is meant by 
mental suggestion, we quote here an experiment which Beaunis, 
assisted by Liebault, made on a young man who was a good somnam- 
bulist, and who came accompanied by his female cousin. L., who hyp- 
notized him, said to him : " Upon awaking, you will perform the action 
of which those present are now thinking P Beaunis then wrote with a 
lead-pencil on a piece of paper: "Embrace his cousin." He showed 
the paper to L. and the others and asked them co read the writing 
with their eyes only, without moving their lips. When the patient 
awoke, they were to think intently of only that which he was to do, 
without telling him of it and without aiding him by any sign. Shortly 
after awaking he began to laugh and hid his face in his hands. — '"What 
is the matter?" — "Nothing." — "Of what are you thinking ?" — No 
answer. — "You know that you will do something that we are thinking 
of. If you do not. wish to do it, tell us at least, what you intended to 
do." — "No." — "If you do not wish to say it aloud you may whisper it 
tome." — He whispered to B.: "Embrace my cousin." After he had 
once overcome his modesty by telling it, he also did it with a good 
grace. 

By this experiment, made with every precaution, Beaunis was con- 
vinced of the possibility of mind-reading and transmission of 
thought, although he had previously been the greatest of skeptics. 
Several successful experiments convinced him that these phenomena 
could not be explained as being either guesswork or accident. 

A characteristic experiment by Liebault may also be quoted here. 
Miss L. was hypnotized. In order not to betray the secret by utter- 
ing it even in a low tone, L. wrote on a slip : " When she awakes, she 
will see her hat changed from black to red." The slip was shown to 
all the witnesses. L. and one of his friends put their hands on her 
forehead and repeated in their minds the written phrase. She was 
informed that, upon awaking, she would behold something strange ; and 
after that she was wakened. Without any hesitation she immediately 
stared at her hat, and laughing aloud she exclaimed: " That is not my 
hat; it certainly has the same shape but it is not mine; give me my 
hat!" — "But what difference is therein it?" — "You know very well; 
you have eyes as well as I." — It was a long time before she would say 



HYPNOTISM. 73 

how the hat had changed ; she complained instead that we were mock- 
ing her. Pressed by questions, she finally said : " Of course you see 
that it is entirely red!" And she refused to take it, so that L. was 
obliged to restore to her eyes by suggestion the true color of the hat. 

The experiments just mentioned, which with reference to scientific 
accuracy and control leave nothing more to desire, thus prove unques- 
tionably that, at least with the aid of hypnotism, one person — the 
hypnotized one — can directly understand what takes place in the 
brain of the other — the hypnotizer — without the usual mediation — 
perception by the external senses. We will soon show that this 
discovery is by no means new, but that it is a fact universally observed 
and acknowledged by the old-time magnetizers, although it was then 
onesidedly explained by emanation — transmission of the magnetic fluid. 
But it is a novel! y of our time, that the same phenomena can be 
produced, even without the help of hypnotism, in certain wide-awake 
persons, especially sensitive to them, although in these persons, a 
somnambulic state of a more latent kind might be supposed. The 
one who made this last discovery was the American, Dr. McGraw. in 
1875. In the following year Professor Barrett of Glasgow made 
several observations in the same direction. The material for such 
investigations was easily found by the thought-game, which was then 
the fashion in English families, viz. — "mind-reading," by the English 
popularly called " the willing game." 

This game is generally played as follows. One of the company is 
selected for "percipient" or thought-reader, and he leaves the room ; 
then the others agree to think of something that the thought-reader 
(generally blindfolded) is to perform, when he re-enters the room ; for 
instance, to blow out a certain candle, strike a certain note on the 
piano, sit down in some one's lap, kiss some one, find some hidden 
object, open a certain page of a book etc. This can be varied infinite- 
ly. Usually .the thought-reader is led by some one — the "agent" — 
who should then with special intentness think of the thing that is to be 
done, without purposely giving, in the slightest degree, any indication 
by pressure or pulling. However, thought-reading, performed in this 
manner, has not the slightest value as scientific proof in this delicate 
question. The results may be ever so surprising ; the acting persons 
may be ever so honest and act bona fide ; yet, as long as the leader in 
any way touches the thought-reader, the possibility always remains 
that the movements of the former — perhaps involuntarily — lead the 
latter on the right track. We know how sensitive a horse is to the 
slightest touch of the rein. 

Hence to make convincing an experiment of thought-reading or 
thought-transmission, the first condition is that no contact should take 
place between the thought-transmitter and the thought-reader; for 
only then can the possibility of transmission by means of the touch be 



74 HYPNOTISM. 

avoided. It is evident that mediation by the senses of sight and hear- 
ing must in the first place be prevented. 

Mental suggestion, by the English called also " transmission " and 
"telepathy," might more properly be termed thought-transmission than 
mind-reading. These words certainly express the same thing from 
different points of view; the former from that of the acting or willing* 
person, the latter from that of the percipient. But as the former is 
generally more active, the latter more passive, and as the action of the 
former even in time precedes that of the latter, the term "mind- 
reading " should be changed to thought-transmission, especially as the 
first word might easily cause the false conception, that the thoughts of 
others may be read against their will, although only rarely would this 
succeed. But not even the word " thought-transmission " expresses 
the whole idea of mental suggestion. For as we shall soon show, not 
only thoughts can be directly transmitted, but also other psychical 
functions, both lower and higher, such as sensations, ideas, modes, 
affections, impulses, effects of the will etc. 

From these phenomena must be carefully excluded, not only those 
which can in any way be explained as arising through conscious or 
unconscious mediation by the external senses, but also those which 
may depend upon mere accident or ordinary guessing. In this last 
respect, modern investigators, with the aid of the strictest calculation 
of probabilities, have distinctly marked the limits of hazard or the 
power of guessing; and they have shown that various genuine 
phenomena have so far crossed this border, that the influence of 
hazard may without the least doubt be set aside. 

As effects of mental suggestion, we may with reason put down 
various "miraculous" occurrences during the Middle Ages and later, 
as also some of the astonishing results of the magnetizers. 

St. Augustin mentions a St. Albicerius, who gave undeniable 
proofs of his ability to read the thoughts of others. The hysterical 
and ecstatic individuals of the Middle Ages and of later times devel- 
oped mental powers so extraordinary as to be deemed superhuman and 
not explainable save by some supernatural agency ; such persons were 
held to be possessed by evil spirits, and often it was the business of 
the exorcists to find whether the possessed could read and discover 
the thoughts of others. Thus Father Surin tells how the possessed 
nuns of Loudun exercised this power. When he asked one of them to 
do what another priest was thinking of, she went to the alter and took 
the Gospel of St. John, exactly what the priest had in his mind. 
Another priest gave five or six of these silent mental orders, one after 
another, to one of the possessed before she had time to execute one, 
and he " tormented the spirit saying : ; Obediat ad men tern ; ' " and the 
spirit loudly repeated all the orders beginning with the first one, but 
adding: "This the father does not desire; " and he did not stop until 
he had repeated them all. 



HYPNOTISM. 75 

In 1635, Gaston, Duke of Orleans, officially testified that one of 
the Louclun nuns hacl accurately obeyed an order that in his mind he 
had silently given her. Such was at that time taken as the surest 
proof of one's being possessed. Father Surin, the Jesuit, swore that 
"the spirits of the possessed had more than two hundred times 
revealed to him very secret things that were concealed in his thought 
or about his person." 

The first one who mentions instances of mental suggestion in 
somnambulists was the Marquis de Puysegur, in 1784. His servant, 
Vielet, (mentioned in our historical review), showed a decided ability 
as thought-reader. P. himself writes: "After I have magnetized him, 
I do not need to speak to him; I think before him, and he hears and 
answers me. If any one enters the room, he sees him, if I wish it. 
He speaks to the stranger and tells him only what I wish him to say. 
If he is about to say more than he ought, I check (in my mind) his 
ideas, his phrases (often in the middle of a word), and I completely 
change the direction of his thoughts. 

A couple of years later, similar observations were made by Petetin, 
a prominent physician and magnetizer of Lyons. Those who made 
suggestions with the will alone were ealkd colontistes. 

Also Deleuze, the learned librarian of the Jardin des Plantes, 
declared (1813) that good somnambulists obey your will without your 
speaking to them. 

A number of authentic proofs from the days of the ancient magne- 
tism might be related, but we hasten to the modern and much more 
decisive experiments with mental suggestion on persons not hypnot- 
ized, and we will group the phenomena according to the different parts 
of the suggestion. 

Transmission of sensations. According to unquestionable tes- 
timony, there are a number of cases of somnambulists, both in ancient 
and modern times, showing ability to feel the hidden sufferings of 
others, to feel another's pain in the corresponding part of their own 
bodies, and in this manner, without further direction, to discover the 
internal discrdjrs of others. This form of mental suggestion has been 
called " organic sympathise. *' In 1825, the Paris Academy of Medicine 
found this question to be of such importance, that they appointed a 
committee who investigated the matter for five years before they pub- 
lished their report, written by Dr. Husson and wholly corroborating 
the above mentioned power of the somnambulists. However, the 
over- wise old fogies of the French academy were so frightened by this 
report that they concluded not to have it printed. That this did not 
suppress the truth, the later history of the subject proves. 

Omitting the more or less convincing reports of all the magnetizers 
We turn directly to the scientific experiments performed in our day, 
under strict control, which give unquestionable proof that not only 



76 HYPNOTISM. 

pain and sensations or mental perceptions, but also moods, affections 
and even specific perceptions of taste can by mental suggestion be 
transmitted from one individual to another. 

Thus in 1885, P. Janet related before La Societe de Psychologie 
Physiologique of Paris, that Mrs. B. seemed to experience most of the 
sensations which appeared in the person who hypnotized her. She 
thought herself to be drinking, when he drank; she plainly felt the 
taste of various substances that Janet, her hypnotizer, put into his 
mouth, such as salt, sugar, pepper, and this even though he was in an- 
other room. When in one room he severely pinched his arm or leg, she — 
in the adjoining room — screamed and complained that she was pinched, 
and she always named the place, where he had pinched himself 
Janet's brother, who had the same influence over her, went into another 
room while she was in the lethargic-somnambulic state, when she was 
most sensitive to suggestion. He burnt himself severely on one arm. 
Immediately Mrs. B. began to cry and complain so that J., who was 
with her, found it difficult to hold her. she complained of a smarting 
pain above her right wrist. J., who did not know on what part of the 
body his brother was going to burn himself, convinced himself that it 
was on this very place. When she awoke, she still complained of such 
severe pain above her right wrist, that a cold compress had to be applied ; 
but she had no idea whence the pain had come. All the next day the pain 
continued, and then also appeared swelling and redness, — the latter 
symptoms possibly because she had rubbed the spot. 

In 1883, the London "Society for Psychical Research" made the 
following experiment. Wells, a young man twenty years of age, was 
hypnotized by means of passes by Smith, who afterwards placed him- 
self behind the chair where Wells (hypnotized and blindfolded) was 
seated. During the first series of experiments Smith held one of the 
patient's hands ; but this proving unnecessary, all contact between S. 
and W. was avoided during the ensuing series. S. was pricked and 
pinched on various parts of his body, and during an otherwise com- 
plete silence, W. was each time asked if he felt anything. These were 

the results • 

The first series. Jayi. 4, 1833. 

1. — The upper part of Smith's right arm was pinched several 
times. — About two minutes later Wells commenced to rub the 
corresponding place on his right arm. 

2. — Pinching of the neck. — W. mentioned pain in his neck. 

3. — A blow on the left calf.— Correctly indicated. 

4. — Pinching of the lobe of the left ear. — Correctly indicated. 

5. — Pinching of the back of the left hand. — Correctly indicated. 

6. — A blow on the upper part of the back. — Correctly indicated. 

7. — Pulling of the hair. — W. localized the pain in his left arm. 

8. — A blow on the right shoulder. — Correctly indicated. 



HYPNOTISM. 77 

9. — Pricking of back of the left hand. Correctly indicated. 
10. — Pricking of the neck. — Correctly indicated. 
11. — Stepping on the toes of the left foot. — Unnoticed. 
12. — Pricking of the left ear. — Correctly indicated. 
13. — Blow on the left shoulder. — Correctly indicated. 
14 — Pinching of the right calf. — Was localized in the arm. 
15. — Pricking of the left hand. — Correctly indicated. 
16. — Pricking below the right ear. — Correctly indicated. 

Thus the experiment was successful in thirteen cases out of six- 
teen ; really a striking result. 

The Second Series. April, 10, 1883. 

The same persons. Wells blindfolded and separated from Smith 
by a screen. During some of the experiments, Smith was in another 
room, separated from that of Wells by a thick curtain. 

17. — Pinching of Smith's right ear. — After two minutes Wells 
exclaimed: "Who is it that is pinching me?" and began to 
scratch his right ear. 
18. — The upper part of the left arm was pinched. — Correctly indi- 
cated, almost immediately. 
19. — The right ear was pinched. — After a minute W. put his hand 
to his right ear, as if he wished to drive off a fly, and he said: 
"Will you leave me alone ! " 
20. — Pinching of the chin. — Correctly indicated, almost imme- 
diately. 
21. — Pulling of the hair.— Unnoticed. 

22. — Pinching of the neck. — Correctly indicated immediately. 
23. — Pinching of the left ear. — The same result. 
24. — Salt was put into S's mouth. — W. exclaimed: "I do not like 
to eat candles." (Five minutes before, the word "candle " had 
been mentioned.) 
25. — Ginger put on the tongue. — "I do not like things that burn; 

why do you give me pepper like that? " 
26. — Salt on the tongue. — "What ill-tasting candy is that?" 
27. — Wormwood. — "You hurt my eyes; I do not like mustard." 
28. — Pinching of the right calf. — W. grew angry and refused to 
speak. Finally he violently stretched his right leg and 
scratched his calf. 
After this experiment W. became desperate did not want to an- 
swer questions, saying that if he did they would continue to pinch him. 
(During this Smith had continuously been pinched on his calf.) Also 
on other occasions it has been found that pulling of the hair is gen- 
erally not transmitted. 

If any of our readers are not satisfied with this record, but desire 
more of the kind, to show how pains of another's body can be felt and 



78 HYP NO TISM. 

precisely localized; how different-tasting substances placed in the 
mouth of another can by mental suggestion be distinguished by the 
percipient or "thought-reader" — in a somnambulic state or not, — we 
refer them to the careful and well-corroborated reports, which may be 
read in the "Proceedings" of the above-mentioned society in London, 
as well as in "Phantasms of the Living" in two large volumes, pub- 
lished in 1886, in London, by Gurney, Myers and Podmore. 



The most common form of mental suggestion is perhaps the trans- 
mission of images to the eye, or visual hallucinations ; and this is done, 
not by verbal suggestion but by direct transmission of the images 
without words or signs — in other words, without the aid of the exter- 
nal senses, but wholly mentally. 

These experiments are very easy to perform ; there are also numerous 
reports of successful attempts in that direction. Such reports are more 
convincing, if they are accompanied by drawings of the hallucinations. 
In the above-named English works, there are series of such drawings, 
where there is an opportunity of comparing the original image with 
the transmitted one. 

Experiments were made in Liverpool, in 1883, by Malcolm Guthrie, 
with either Miss Kelph or Miss Edwards as percipient, without their 
being hypnotized, while G. or some other person was the agent. Agent 
and percipient were placed opposite each other at a table, with a 
screen between them, so that they could not possibly see each other's 
papers. In another room, or so that the percipient could not possibly 
see when and how they were done, simple figures were drawn on the 
agent's paper. The agent now sat down and stared intently at one 
figure at a time. The percipient sat with blindfolded eyes on the other 
side of the screen. As soon as she claimed mentally to perceive the 
figure at which the agent was staring — and this usually occurred 
within a few minutes — the bandage was removed and she then drew 
the figure as it appeared to her interior sight. The most varied 
drawings were more or less correctly reproduced ; once the figure was 
reversed. 

Then a series of experiments was made with the same persons by 
Dr. Oliver Lodge, professer of physics at University College, Liver- 
pool, with such gratifying success, that this skilled experimentalist 
declares these tests to be as reliable and 'convincing as any other 
physical experiment. One of Lodge's experiments is very interesting^ 
as it shows how the percipient can take different impressions from 
several agents at one time. The impression on the percipient is 
usually strengthened, if several agents are looking at or thinking of 
the same thing at the same time. It may also happen, that if at one 
time, several persons are thinking of quite different figures or objects, 
the percipient becomes so confused that no result is obtained. But 



HYPNOTISM. 79 

in one of Lodge's cases, it happened that the percipient got a clear 
conception of the different figures of two agents. One had a square at 
which to look, the other an oblique cross ; neither knew the other's 
figure, nor did the percipient know that they were different; nor were 
the agents in contact with the percipient. 

Soon the percipient said : " I see figures that move around each 
other — I think I see two figures — first I see one and then below that 
another — I do not know which I am to draw — I cannot see either 
plainly:" Then Lodge said: "Well, draw whatever you have seen." 
She removed the bandage and drew a square first. Then she said : 
" And then there was another figure — but they both seemed to mix." 
— And she drew an oblique cross diagonally in the square, but after- 
ward remarked : " I do not know why I put it inside." 

The figures that the agents were looking at were | and X; and 

the figure drawn wasj X . 



Transmission of an idea or of an act of the will. It is difficult 
to make any distinct difference between an idea, a detailed perception 
and a simple act of the will, when their influence by mental suggestion 
on the brain of another is concerned. They are usually inseparably 
connected with each other, because the will must contain some idea in 
order to become a concrete act of will and not merely an abstraction ; 
and on the other hand an idea cannot be transmitted or suggested 
except by an act of the will. Hence we must consider in inseparable 
connection such mental suggestions as principally contain an idea or an 
act of the will. 

We have already shown that where the producing of hypnotic 
sleep is concerned, the idea of sleep and the will of the hypnotizer play 
a very important part. The only question now is whether such an idea 
or act of the will can in a purely mental way be transmitted to the 
object and produce sleep. Can the idea of sleep be called forth, or can 
the patient be hypnotized, or wakened out of hypnosis, by a silent act 
of the operator's will, without the patient's perceiving his purpose by 
means of his external senses ? Here belong the questions : 

1. — Can any one be hypnotized without knowing it? 

2. — Can any one be lrypnotized at a distance from the operator, 
without previous agreement ? 

3. — Can any one be hypnotized against his will or in spite of a 
strong resistance? 

The only modern author, who gives a distinctly negative answer 
to these questions, is Bernheim ; but in his description of facts he con- 
tradicts himself. Various experiments from both ancient and modern 
times prove on the other hand that all the three questions must be an- 
swered in the affirmative. Omitting the older proofs, we quote some 
modern ones, front which the reader may judge for himself. 



80 • HYJPNOTIS3L 

That animals can be hypnotized without their knowledge and will 
is shown by the many successful experiments which have been made 
on crabs, frogs, hens etc. Oftentimes the attempt to hypnotize per- 
sons, when they w T ere in a natural sleep, has met with success. In 
such cases the will or imagination of the hypnotized could not have 
co-oj)erated. 

But we let the following reliable facts speak for themselves. 

Ochorowicz mentions (1887) a Dr. S., in whose house a somnam- 
bulist — Miss X. — was sitting at a table while he walked the floor. 
Suddenly he saw another lady coming to the house. As he had his 
reasons for not letting the somnambulist see this lady, during his 
walk he made a gesture behind her head for the purpose of hypnotiz- 
ing her. She saw nothing of this, but immediately fell asleep and 
slept soundly, while S. received the other lady and conversed with her 
After she had gone, he only blew on the somnambulist, who, immedi- 
ately awakened, found the doctor walking as before, and had no idea 
that he had talked with any one else, nor that she herself had been 
asleep. 

Although the case does not with certainty prove that she was 
hypnotized by mental suggestion alone — for she might have felt the 
draught from the gesture behind her — yet it shows that she was hyp- 
notized without her own will. 

With the same lady Ochorowicz made the following experiment. 
In a company where she met O., she declared that she, who had not 
been hypnotized for a long time, had now become so strong that she 
could even hypnotize O. He lent himself to the joke and allowed her 
to try. Very much interested, she took hold of his thumbs and 
stared at his eyes. He pretended to fall asleep, but suddenly he 
opened his eyes and stared at her with the full intention of hypnotizing 
her ; and after a few seconds, she fell asleep herself. She was allowed 
to sleep for three-quarters of an hour and was subjected to several 
experiments. O. then reassumed his sleeping position, blew on her, so 
she awaked, and still pretended to be asleep himself. She clapped her 
hands triumphantly, while the company laughed at her for still 
believing that she had succeeded in hypnotizing the doctor. 

Thus this time she was hypnotized against her will and without 
her knowledge. 

Another girl, fourteen years old, strong and healthy, who used to 
be hypnotized by O. only to show the experiments to other physicians, 
was persuaded by her friends not to allow these experiments any 
longer. So one day she obstinately refused to let herself be hyp- 
notized, and would not give herself up to the influence even at the 
request of her parents — " Well Miss, do you not think I can hypnotize 
you against your will? " — "No ; I shall not sit beside you any more." — 
O. then took his handkerchief which was lying on the table, threw it at 



HYPNOTISM. 81 

her and said : " Well, now it is done ; in five minutes you will be 
asleep ! " — " That will make no difference to me," she said ; but she 
withdrew, afraid of meeting his eyes. — " It will not help you to run 
away; you will return of your own accord." — Half an hour later she 
returned in a perfectly somnambulistic state. Thus she was hyp- 
notised not only without co-operating with O., but also with the full 
determination to resist the hypnosis with her will. This does not alter 
the fact, that a strong will in less sensitive persons can counteract and 
delay the sleep, just as the co-operation of the subject's will always 
promotes it. 

In these two cases however, the subject knew that the hypnotizei 
was in the vicinity, and in the last case she also knew of his intention. 
But there are proofs that not even this is necessary for hypnotizing. 
A person who is lying in his deepest natural sleep, who has never seen 
the magnetizer, and who suspects nothing, can be exposed during this 
sleep to the gestures of the magnetizer — merely to his will — and by 
this means he will fall into somnambulism and execute the other's 
orders; and the next morning he will awake without remembering 
anything of this. 

O. had a patient who was rather difficult to hypnotize. One 
evening, when he came later than usual, he found her asleep over a 
tiresome novel — in a perfectly natural sleep. O. then put her into the 
hypnotic state, first into lethargy for a quarter of an hour and then 
into somnambulism, when he talked to her. Then he wakened her. — 
" Oh ! are you here? Please hypnotize me immediately, because my le^'S 
ache." — "But I have already hypnotized you and the ache is gone."- 
"That is true — it really feels as if the ache were gone. "--But she 
would not believe that she had already been hypnotized. Another 
time when the pain was very severe, she had in vain sent for O. who 
had gone away. He came to her however in the night, but found her 
unconscious, in full delirium and writhing in pain. He spoke to her. 
She did not answer. He then put his hand on her head and hypnotized 
her within five minutes. (O. mentions that, for special reasons, she 
went to sleep more easily when she did not know that he was present.) 
The pain immediately disappeared, and she was ordered to sleep calm- 
ly all night. She slept well, and upon awaking, had not the slightest 
idea of the doctor's visit. 

Both Ochorowicz and Voisin have succeeded in hypnotizing men- 
tally diseased persons against their will. 

In 1884, Perronet, a modsrn volontiste produced very strong evi_ 
deuces that the hypnotizer in many cases needs no other means for 
hypnotizing or awaking than his own firm will. 

P. omitted as superfluous one external means after another, first 
the fixing of the eyes, then the passes, and even the order, " Sleep !" 
Finally it was enough for him merely to concentrate his thought or his 



82 HYPNOTISM. 

will on the subject who was to fall asleep. He abstained from all mim- 
ical or phonetic symbols of this will, which was alone concentrated for 
the purpose. A person, susceptible to hypnotism, did not need to be 
previously prepared by any word or sign. As she sat in the midst of 
her work or at conversation, she would immediately fall a victim to his 
silent will, with eyes and limbs fixed in cataleptic tetanus. — " Why are 
you asleep? Do wake!" — "You know that I cannot waken myself.'' — 
"Why?" — "Because you wish me to sleep." — "How do you know 
that? I have not asked you to sleep." — "No, you have not said it; 
you say the opposite, but that is in jest ; I know that you wish me to 
be asleep." — "What shall I do to awaken you?" — "Only will it." — 
"Then," Perronet relates, "I directed my will on her waking without 
betraying it by look or gesture ; and she immediate awoke." 

Pierre Janet also states as his experience that all manoeuvres 
towards hypnotizing a person are of no avail, if the thoughts of the 
operator are distracted and if his will does not co-operate. Hericourt 
also agrees with this. 

Although the facts hitherto mentioned are by many scientists con- 
sidered sufficient proofs for the theory that a magnetizer can govern 
his subject with his will alone, without giving any perceptible express- 
ion to it, yet we demand still stronger evidence of the existence of a 
purely mental suggestion. For, as long as the magnetizer is in the 
same room as the subject, it may be possible that the generally sharp- 
ened senses of the latter can, at the right moment, perceive some slight 
external sign of the magnetizer's will, and that the suggestion is still 
in some imperceptible way transmitted through the senses. Only when 
the operator is in another room or at a distance, can one be perfectly 
sure that there is no possibility of ordinary communication between 
him and the subject. Consequently the question would arise: Is there 
such a thing as mental suggestion from a distance ? Below are given 
some facts, which seem to show that such suggestion really exists. 

We have already mentioned various cases which cannot be 
explained except by transmission — at least from a short distance — of 
an internal image or idea from one brain to another, without mediation 
through the senses. But if such transmission can take place from a 
distance of one yard, there is only a small degree of difference if it is 
transmitted from a distance of ten, one hundred or one thousand yards. 
If a screen does not interfere, certainly a door, a wall or a whole 
house ought not to prevent the transmission. Yet it is not to be 
expected that it should follow from this that the distance is of no con- 
sequence at all. For this circumstance is not so wholly immaterial but 
that it must be considered as dependent on the laws of matter; and as 
sound and light act both at a short distance and from afar, though 
much more feebly in the latter case, so we must expect the power of men- 
tal suggestion also to decrease with the distance, and soon to find a limit 



HYPNOTISM. 83 

that cannot in ordinary cases be overpassed. "With this restriction in 
our demands and expectations we will now consider the remarkable 
■cases that belong here. It was not in connection with experiments of 
mind-reading, nor only yesterday, that phenomena of this kind were 
■discovered. Even Mesmer and the earliest magnetizers knew of them. 
But in order to go immediately to scientific and fully recognized authori- 
ties, we turn to the physicans of the Hotel Dieu hospital in Paris. 
One experiment made there on the fourth of November, 1820, is 
recounted by Dupotet as follows. "Subjects are sometimes found of 
such sensitiveness, that they can be acted upon through walls and par- 
titions, on occasions when it could not possibly be supposed, that they 
have any knowledge of your intention. They feel your presence ; they 
know when you absent yourself ; they go to sleep and wake according 
to your will. — We were all assembled in the usual room for our seances, 
with the exception of the sick woman. Husson, the physician to the 
hospital, said to me : ' You must try to put the patient to sleep without 
her seeing you, and without her knowing of your arrival here.' — I said 
that the effect from a distance was dependent on her susceptibility. 
However I was placed in an adjoining room, separated by a thick wall 
and a door which was locked. At the sign agreed upon, I began to 
magnetize, without making the slightest sound. The patient, who sat 
in the next room, a few feet from the wall that separated us, expressed 
her astonishment that I had not come, and consequently she did not 
expect any magnetizing. Three minutes after I had commenced to 
magnetize by directing my will on it, she fell into ordinary somnam- 
bulism. — On the seventh of November I renewed the experiment before 
Prof. Recamier, who took all the necessary precautions. He placed 
the patient more than six feet away from the wall that separated our 
rooms, and with her back turned to it. She was told that I was not 
going to come, and she intended to leave. The instant E. asked her 
whether she could digest meat — that was the sign — I began to magnet- 
ize ; three minutes later she was asleep. When the remark was made 
that the success of this second trial might depend upon the fact that 
the arrangement was quite similar to that of the first one, a reverse 
experiment was tried : — the same preparations were made for the third 
time, but without my being present in this room or the next. A sign 
was also given, but no inclination to sleep appeared. Later, when I 
arrived, I easily put her to sleep." 

Such experiments were soon repeated at most of the larger hos- 
pitals in Paris, and they convinced many prominent physicians of the 
great influence of the will in magnetizing. Lafontaine, a physician, 
magnetized several persons from a distance, and among others, from 
his rooms — under strict control — a patient w T ho was in the mayor's 
office, at a distance of half a kilometre. It was stated that she became 
sleepy after one minute and fell asleep after five. 



84 HYPNOTISM. 

Dr. Dusart relates a still more extraordinary experience. He had 
put a patient to sleep in the evening but had forgotten to tell her at 
what time she would be allowed to awake the following morning. He 
first remembered his negligence when he was seven hundred metres 
away, but as it was too far to return, he conceived the idea that as he 
could mentally affect her from a distance of one or two metres, he 
might just as well do it from a longer distance, so in his mind he now 
formulated the order that she should awake at eight A. M. the next 
day. When he arrived there at half past seven, she was still asleep. — 
"How is it that you are still asleep?"- — "I only obey you." — "You are 
mistaken; for I left you yesterday without giving you any orders." — 
"Very true; but five minutes after you had left me, I distinctly heard 
you say to me, that I was to sleep till eight A. M." — He did not dare 
to believe that his will had been effective at such a distance, but 
thought that she had inferred the hour, as he usually let her sleep till 
eight A. M. In order to make still another experiment, he told her 
that she might now sleep until he awakened her. In his home, seven 
kilometeres away, he gave her, at two P. M. the mental order that was 
to waken her. He drove to her house, and her parents told him that 
she awoke at precisely two P. M. — On the first of January he ceased 
to visit the patient, and he had not seen her since, when on the 
twelfth, during a walk, at a distance of ten kilometres from her home, 
he conceived the idea of trying to influence her in spite of the great 
distance. After the first of January the doctor's visits had ceased, and 
her father had magnetized her. It was ten A. M. when D. in his mind 
forbade the patient to let herself be put to deep by her father. After a 
while he regretted it, as he thought that the order might hurt the 
patient; he therefore countermanded it. — .He was greatly astonished 
when, the next morning, he received a letter from her father, saying 
that at ten A. M. the day before, when as usual he was going to put 
his daughter to sleep, he did not succeed until after a long and painful 
struggle ; once asleep, she had declared that it was by order of the 
doctor that she resisted, and she did not go to sleep until he allowed 
her to do so. 

Dr. Hericourt writes as follows in 1885. 

"Soon my soporific influence extended not only from one end of 
the room to the other, but also from one room to another and from one 
house to another, even if they were far apart. One day, when I was in 
my room, I conceived the idea of trying to put to sleep a Mrs D., who 
lived in another street about three hundred metres distant. It was 
3 P. M. when I was walking to and fro and intently thinking of the re- 
sult I should obtain. I now had to visit a couple of patients and for- 
got Mrs. D., whom I had agreed to meet at a public promenade at 4.30 
P. M. I went to the premenade but did not find her there at the ap- 
pointed hour. I then concluded that my magnetizing from a distance 



HYPNOTISM. 85 

had been successful; and at 5 P. M. I intently thought of awaking her. 
I met her in the evening. Of her own accord and without my referring 
to the question, she then told me why she did not come to the prome- 
nade ; that about three o'clock, when she was in her chamber, she had 
suddenly been seized with an irresistible desire to sleep ; her eyes be- 
came heavy, her legs refused to carry her and she had hardly time to 
go into her parlor before she sank on a sofa. Her servant came to 
speak to her, but found her pale, cold and rigid, as if she had been 
dead. The girl could only make her open her eyes. A severe head- 
ache, from which she was then suffering, disappeared of itself at 5 P. M.' 

Under the strictest control, H. made several such experiments 
with the same lady; sometimes when he was in the same room with 
her, he told her that he was going into the next room, from whence he 
would put her to sleep. He went there but was instead thinking of 
keeping her awake. When he returned he was ridiculed, because "he 
had not been able to put her to sleep." On other occasions, he stole 
into another room and put her to sleep whenever he chose. 

P. Janet reports [in Revue Scientifique, May, 1S8G] similar results 
from experiments made by him and Dr. Oibert on a Mrs B. One day 
at 11.30 A. M., Janet requested that G. should, from the room where 
they were sitting, hypnotize Mrs. B., who was in her home at a dis- 
tance of at least five hundred metres, and who suspected nothing, as 
she was never hypnotized at that hour. J. then went to her house, 
found her quite awake, and hence supposed that the experiment had 
failed. He then hypnotized her in the usual manner, and before he 
asked her any question she said: "I know very well that Giber t 
wished to hypnotize me, but when I noticed it I dipped my hands into 
cold water in order to prevent the sleep ; I do not wish to be hypno- 
tized like that and made a subject of conversation and ridicule." — She 
had really dipped her hands into cold water before J. 's arrival. The pecu- 
liar circumstance of this case is, that while she was yet awake, Mrs. B. 
had received a certain intimation of the fact, that some one was trying 
to hypnotize her fiom afar, and that she could prevent it by cold 
water. 

Another day J. asked G. to hypnotize Mrs. B. from his room at 
11.40 A. ML, without telling her of it beforehand. At 11.45 A. M., 
when J. came to her w r ith several witnesses, she was lying on a chair 
in an uncomfortable position, fast asleep and completely insensi- 
ble, and those present could not awaken her. She said: "Why send 
them here? I forbade you to play me such tricks. Why does Gibert 
hypnotize me from his room? I did not have time to put my hands 
into cold water — I will not !" — Janet tried in vain to exert any mag- 
netic influence over her; he could neither cause contracture nor 
awaken her, he even had to send for Gibert, under whose influence she 
still remained. When he arrived, he easily awakened her. — Afterwards 



86 HYPNOTISM. 

an experiment was made which showed G.'s influence from a distance 
during the sleep also. With the same lady Janet then made eight ex- 
periments, hypnotizing her from a distance at unexpected hours, and 
they were all successful. Out of twenty-two experiments, made partly 
by Janet and partly by Gibert, to hypnotize her from a distance, only 
six failed and among those were the first three, before she. was used to 
it. On the other hand it was accomplished sixteen times in the most 
complete manner. This certainly cannot depend upon chance. 



Mental suggestion can overcome distance, not only in space but 
also in time ("suggestion mentale a echeance"), that is to say, the will 
of the operator can be executed at a later time prescribed by him, and 
not merely at the same moment — as we have seen in the verbal sug- 
gestions. 

Again our operator is Dr. Gibert, and the subject is Mrs. B., whom 
we already know. He put her into lethargic sleep ; during this deep 
slumber he approached his forehead to hers and for some moments he 
concentrated his thoughts on the order that he silently gave her in his 
mind, without uttering it aloud to any one. But he wrote it on a pa- 
per, which he gave to Janet in a sealed envelope. The order was to 
be executed on the following morning between eleven and twelve 
o'clock. The next day J., went to Mrs. Bs. At 11.30 A. M. she 
appeared very uneasy, left her kitchen where she then was, ran into 
another room and seized a glass, with which she hurried into the parlor 
to J., and asked him if he had called. On his answering in the negative 
she again rushed into the kitchen and then into the parlor several 
times without knowing what she wished. Soon she fell down, hypno- 
tized from afar by Gibert. During her sleep she said : " I trembled when 
I came to ask you whether you had called me ; I had to come, but it was 
not nice to come like that with the glass; why do they wish me to 
carry glasses around ? I do not wish you to do like that." — Janet opened 
ihe sealed order, which contained : ' ; Offer a glass of water to each one of 
the gentlemen." Though the suggestion had not been completely 
executed, it was evidently a good begining in the right direction. 

A couple of days later the order: "Lock the front doors of the 
house to-morrow at noon!" written and hidden away by Janet, was in 
the same way suggested by Gibert. On the following day about noon, 
Janet found her front door locked, contrary to the usual custom. 
Mrs. B. had locked the door herself. On being asked why, she said ; 
"I felt so tired and I did not wish you to come and hypnotize me." — 
She was very uneasy, walked to and fro in the garden, picked a rose, 
and ran to look into the letter-box at the door. The strangest circum_ 
stance of these actions was, that they were just the ones that J. and 
G. had agreed to suggest, although they had finally decided on the above- 
named order. Mrs. B. had evidently also been impressed by their 
first plans, although these had been discarded. 



HYPNOTISM. 87 

A day or two after this she was, in the same mental way, given the 
order to walk twice around her garden with an opened umbrella, the 
next day at noon. At the prescribed hour she became uneasy, made 
two turns through her garden, but did not open any umbrella. She 
was hypnotized and said : " Why did you make me walk around the 
garden? I looked silly! If it had only been the same w r eather as yes 
terday ! " (it rained that day.) "But to-day I should have looked ridicu- 
lous." — The weather was pleasant, and hence she could not induce herself 
to open the umbrella, although the thought of it and the impulse to it 
pursued her. 

We have now collected a number of coincident experiences (from 
different periods and different persons), of which at least the more 
modern ones have the stamp of careful, scientific investigation; and 
these seem to give an unquestionable answer to the three questions 
enumerated above. 



Clairvoyance. While "animal magnetism" was in vogue, this 
name was generally given to the wonderful gift, found in a great many 
somnambulists, of seeing clearly in darkness — botii literally and figura- 
tively speaking, — that is perceiving by the external senses with super- 
natural acuteness, and also to grasping by the internal sense things that 
were beyond the natural power of conception, in addition to a certain 
divinatory or prophetic power of reading the thoughts and feelings of 
others; of discovering hidden things ; of predicting future events; of 
speaking foreign languages, etc. Nothing has been so misused in the 
service of humbug and charlatanry as the clairvoyance. . The narratives 
that are cited in evidence must consequently be received with the 
greatest caution. But even after the most careful selection, so much 
that refers to the subject still remains, that it proves worthy of scien- 
tific investigation; and the best key for solving these enigmas we have 
doubtless already found in hypnotism and especially in the modern 
theory of suggestion. The sharpened wits of the somnambulist and 
particularly his susceptibility to suggestion, sufficiently explain most of 
the phenomena which have been quoted as proofs of specific clairvoyance ; 
and for the present we adhere to the opinion that there is no specific 
clairvoyance beyond the limits of the influence of these powerful factors. 

After w T e have become acquainted with the silently working, purely 
mental suggestion, which plays pranks both known and unknown to 
the operator, generally unknown to the subject, and always unknown 
to the bystanders, with its aid it is by no means difficult to explain 
numerous "wonders" of clairvoyance. The many cases where a som- 
nambulist has exhibited unusual and (for her degree of culture^ 
inexplicable medical knowledge, might best be explained, at least 
when a physician was present, by the fact that it was the knowledge 
and ideas of the physician which were transmitted to her brain, 



88 HYPNOTISM. 

usually unbeknown to him, by mental suggestion, and which for 
the moment made her so learned. When like a prophetess she 
tells the thoughts, secrets or past experiences of persons present, who 
are to her entire strangers, she has most likely received her infor- 
mation in the same way; — and thus vanishes the nimbus of the super- 
natural art of divination with which she has been surrounded. How- 
ever it should here be remembered, that although such thoughts and 
memories, which for the moment are clearest to him who transmits the 
suggestion, are more easily transmitted to the somnambulist, yet there 
are cases which seem to indicate that also the contents of a clouded 
memory can in this way be brought out. It is for this reason that the 
somnambulist will sometimes tell things which are not in the thoughts 
of any of those present — which perhaps have been forgotten by him 
whom they concern — but of which at least enough memory remains to 
make them recognized as true by those concerned. 

The following instance has been reported by Robert-Houdin, the 
famous magician and prestigiateur. (A testimony from such a person 
about inexplicable phenomena produced by others, ought to be the 
best proof against deceit and trickery.) Robert-Houdin, who was 
practised in the art of imitating the acts of somnambulists, wished to 
try whether he could also learn to imitate the famous somnambulist, 
Alexis. He describes the experiment thus: "After Alexis had taken 
hold of my wife's hands, he spoke to her of past events that concerned 
her, and especially of the painful loss of one of her children, of which 
all the circumstances were described with perfect exactness." The 
skillful magician, who did not easily allow himself to be deceived or 
suprised, declared that he was quite puzzled. "These were not like 
my usual tricks — neither dexterity nor escamotage. Here I witnessed 
a higher, more incomprehensible power, of which I did not have the 
slightest conception, and in which I should never have believed, had I 
not with my own eyes seen the clear facts. I was so overcome that the 
perspiration dripped from my face." 

• In the same company there was a very skeptical physician — Dr. 
Chomel — who also wished to convince himself by his own eyes. He 
gave Alexis a small box. A. felt of it without opening it and said: "It 
is a medal ; you got it under peculiar circumstances. You were then a 
poor student living in Lyons. A laborer, to whom you had done some 
service, found this medal among some rubbish and thinking that you 
would like to have it, he climbed your six flights of stairs to offer it to 
you." All was literally true. Such things, however, one cannot guess 
at. 

# Some months later Robert-Houdin again visited Alexis. He then 
gave A. a letter which he had just received but had not yet opened. 
H. knew only from whom it was and not what was in it. It bore the 
Boulogne stamp, but had come from England. A. immediately said it 



HYPNOTISM. 89 

was from England and gave a very minute description of the writer. 
He made one mistake, in calling him a book- seller. Upon being cor- 
rected, he said that he saw him in a room filled with books, which much 
resembled a book-store. Such was really the room where the writer 
had his office. Alexis could not describe the contents of the letter. 

This case strongly corroborates our theory just mentioned of the 
true nature and cause of clairvoyance, so-called. A. knew as much 
about the letter as H. did himself, but not one bit more. 

On numerous occasions somnambulists have read folded letters ; 
these have generally been placed on the pit of the stomach. I am 
fully convinced that they have not been able to decipher other letters 
than those whose contents were known to some person present — best 
of all, to the magnetizer himself. 

JPhreno-hypnotism. By this name Braid designated a group of 
hypnotic phenomena which reminded him of the old phrenology of 
Gall. Both Braid and other magnetizers have shown that special re- 
gions of the brain can be affected by hypnotism, so that a pressure on 
the skull or a mere pointing at certain parts of it produces phenomena 
depending upon supposed underlying motor or sensory centres in the 
cortical part of the brain, or it puts into activity mental faculties which 
are supposed to be located in these regions. As all the facts apper- 
taining to this subject can not be explained by a defective or fallacious 
observation, the same explanation must be given of these phenomena 
as of clairvoyance : that here the chief motor is not the pointing with 
the magnetizing finger at a certain region of the brain but it is the di- 
recting of the magnetizer's thought and will on a certain expected 
result. Thus these phenomena also are easily explained by mental 
suggestion. A very convincing case was recently reported by a French 
physician. As we know, it is now on good grounds supposed that the 
faculty of speech has its seat in the foremost lobe of the left half of 
the brain. With his attention directed on this, the physician made his 
experiments so that he alternately pressed first on the left, then on the 
right side of the somnambulist's forehead. Every time he pressed 
on the left side the patient became speechless, but when he pressed on 
the right side speech returned. During these experiments he was dis- 
turbed, so that instead of pressing on the left side as he intended, he 
unconsciously pressed on the right side. The patient then also became 
speechless, which clearly proves that all depended upon his thought, 
and not upon his hand or on which part of the head was touched at 
the time. 



Much more could be said about the great role that seems to be 
played by suggestion and especially by mental suggestion in the caus- 
ing and explaining of various miraculous phenemena, so called, which 



90 HYPNOTISM. 

can be found not only within hypnotism, but also within the sphere of 
everything mystic — not least within spiritualism — and even in every- 
day life. But it remains for the science of the future to throw more 
light on this subject which is still wrapped in obscurity. 



CHAPTER IX. 



HYPNOTISM AS A REMEDIAL AGENT. 



IMAGINATION is a thiDg that is looked upon with a certain con- 
tempt. With the phrase : "it is only imagination," persons believe 
themselves to be rid of the matter. Imagination however is without 
doubt one of the greatest resources which the human soul possesses ; 
and with this force, rightly used, man can achieve what are by the ig- 
norant accounted miracles. In all times mankind has more or less con- 
sciously — and generally less — used magnetism and hypnotism in the 
service of therapeutics. Manifold are the ways of using these forces 
for the curing of diseases. The principal means for this purpose has 
always, although often unconsciously, been suggestion or imagination. 
Hence the proper name for this' curative method is now-a-days neither 
magnetic nor hypnotic cure, but suggestive therapeutics or imagina- 
tion-cure. The realists of our day have altogether too great an inclina- 
tion to scorn the mystic words : "Faith helps." Through suggestion 
these words begin to get their scientific explanation and their mystic 
veil begins to be lifted. 

But it is not exclusively by suggestion that the hypnotizer can 
favorably affect certain diseases. Hypnotism in itself can also be used 
without the aid of suggestion, as an anodyne and as a means of sooth- 
ing and invigorating, because of the sleep and insensibility it produces. 
On account of these qualities, hypnotism has been used for sleepless- 
ness, for occasional aches, and to make surgical and obstetrical opera- 
tions free from pain. But these purely hypnotic effects are also 
strengthened and prolonged by suggestion. The difference is easily 
understood. If I put a patient suffering from some pain into so deep 
an hypnotic slumber that he becomes insensible, the ache will disap- 
pear during the sleep, but will continue when he awakes, unless the 
pain was of such a nature that, like a short paroxysm, it has ceased of 
its own accord during the time he was asleep, just as it would even if 
he had been awake. A more lasting pain, however, is relieved by hyp- 
notism only during the sleep ; but if the suggestion be added that the 
pain shall not be felt at the awaking, the ache, which would otherwise 
have begun anew at the waking, is often checked. Thus suggestion in 
this case gives an important addition to the effect of hypnotism. 



HYPNOTISM. 91 

From the description of the physiological effects of suggestion on 
the human organism, it can be approximately estimated what can be 
expected from it when used in therapeutics. It goes without saying 
that it has its first and best field of action in diseases of the nervous 
system, and among these, principally in functional or dynamic disturb- 
ances — those which do not dep'end on any perceptible destruction of 
tissue or organic defect in the nervous system — and preferably, such 
disturbances as have been caused by imagination or in a psychical way. 
But we have also reason to expect some effects on pathological states 
of the lower organic or vegetative life. 

A brief summary of the results that have already been gained by 
magnetic, hypnotic, or suggestive therapeutics, will show us in what 
measure these expectations have been fulfilled. 

The "wonder-cures," which have in all ages been made by oracles, 
priests, exorcists, charlatans, magicians, and "wonder-doctors" in 
general, have almost all been achieved through hypnotism and suggest- 
ion, although the visible means have alternately been oracular respon- 
ses, magic sentences, exorcisms, laying on hands, holy wells, sweating- 
cloths, amulets, relics, magnetized tables, magnetized trees, homoeopathic 
globules, bread-pills, colored water, etc. To witness a brilliant sample 
of this unconscious method of suggestion, we invite the reader to pay 
a visit to Father Gassner, the great exorcist, when he is just perform- 
ing the wonder-cure which we have already mentioned in our historical 
review. 

Emilie, a young German girl nineteen years of age, daughter of an 
officer in a princely court, had for two years and a half suffered from 
convulsions; she was almost cured by a physician in Strasbourg, but to 
make sure, she also desired to visit Father Gassner, the famous thau- 
maturge, who was then sojourning in Ellwangen, a small city fifty miles 
from the girl's home. The girl was cheerful and in good health during 
the whole journey, and was present for two days at Gassner's conjura- 
tions without feeling sick. When she finally spoke of the disease that she 
had had and from which she had been cured by a physician, the priest 
declared that she was by no means cured, and that her disease was so 
much the more dangerous as it was latent throughout her body ; as a 
proof of this he promised both to produce the disease anew and to cure 
it radically by exorcism. 

Gassner immediately made an experiment. He ordered "the evil 
spirit" to show himself first in an arm, theu in a leg, and again in her 
whole body, and the spirit always responded by convulsions in the 
place indicated. G. ordered him to make the girl scream, roll her 
eyes, and show the most violent attacks of the old disease. It all 
stopped however as soon as Gassner pronounced his "cesseV (cease)! 
This was the first time the priest had spoken to the spirit in Latin, 
and the spirit was so polite as to listen to this language. (The girl 



92 HYPNOTISM. 

Lad learned Latin at home!) — This however was declared to be only 
a test-cure. The real cure would be made with more eclat before a 
large and select company, in order to display Gassner's great ability in 
exorcism. — Before a brilliant assembly, among whom was also Dr. 
Bollinger, the cure began by the priest exhorting Emilie to put her 
faith in God and the Saviour, whose power over the evil spirit was the 
only thing that could cure her. Then he placed her on a chair in front 
of him and began a series of conjurations in Latin, of which we only 
quote the following : 

" Prmcipio tibi, in nomine -Teste, ut minister Christi et JEcclesicei 
veniat agitatio brachiorum quam antecedenter habuisti!" ("As the 
servant of Christ and the Church, I command thee in the name of 
Jesus, let the jerking of the arms appear, which thou hadst before!") 
Emilie's arms began to jerk. 

" Agitentur brachia tali par oxysmo qualem antecedenter habuisti /" 
(" Shake the arms in such paroxysm, as thou hadst before ! ") — She fell 
backward in the chair and extended both arms. 

" Cesset paroxysmus /" ("Let the paroxysm cease !") — She rose 
quickly and appeared w T ell and happy. 

" Paroxysmus veniat iterum, vehementius ut ante fuit et quidem 
pertotum corpus!''' ("Let the paroxysm come again, more vehemently 
than before, and that through the whole body!") — The paroxysm reap- 
peared. Bollinger found her pulse rapid and uneven. Her feet were 
lifted to an equal height with the table, and her arms became so stiff 
that two persons could not bend them, etc. 

" Cesset paroxysmus in momento!" ("Let the paroxysm cease 
instantly! ") 

In this way Gassner continued for a long while, sometimes 
producing, sometimes stopping the convulsive fits, or pain in various 
parts of the body, or laughter, weeping, wrath and all kinds of 
mental emotions ; he ordered her to run out and come back again ; he 
alternately conjured away the senses of sight, hearing and speech ; 
he all but made her insane. Finally he ordered the spirit to leave her 
forever, so that she might become well. The " spirit " always under- 
stood how to obey his Latin ! From the standpoint of that time this 
was certainly an evident proof of thaumaturgic power ; to us it is a 
clear proof of the influence of verbal suggestion on a hysterical 
woman. 

That Mesmer, Puysegur and many magnetizers have cured various 
nervous ailments admits of no doubt. Braid also endeavored to make 
hypnotism a curative agency, and in many cases he had decided 
success. But what interests us most is to find out whether besides 
Braid other educated physicians and noted scientists have also suc- 
ceeded in using this agent in the service of therapeutics. The flavor 
of charlantery and mysticism, which was given by the magnetizers to 



HYPNOTISM. 93 

the practice of hypnotization, his for a long time deterred physicians 
from meddling with such a thing, and this certainly to the great 
disadvantage both of the science and the public. Until lately, but few 
physicians have had sufficient knowledge of the benefits of hypnotism, 
and sufficient courage to investigate for themselves a subject held in 
such bad repute. Among the first experiments we find the endeavors 
of surgeons to use magnetic sleep as an anodyne in more serious 
operations. As early as 1829, Cloquet succeeded in this manner in 
amputating without pain a woman's breast. In 1845, Loysel of 
Cherbourg made painless amputation of a leg. Broca and Follin used 
hypnotism when making incisions in ulcers ; also Velpeau and other 
French surgeons made use of hypnosis as an anodyne in their opera- 
tions. Most of them however found chloroform more convenient. 

From 1850 to 1860 hypnotism was used on a large scale by Dr. 
Esdaile, head-surgeon at the hospital of Calcutta. In six years he per- 
formed six hundred operations on hypnotized Hindoos, and a commit- 
tee of surgeons and physicians appointed by the Indian government 
testified to his great success, which was chiefly derived from the fact 
that the most difficult operations could usually be made without a sign 
of pain from the patient, and without memory, when they awaked, of 
what had been done to them. The Hindoos, however, are said to be 
very susceptible to hypnotism. 

A few obstetricians have also successfully used hypnotism to ren- 
der delivery and obstetrical operations painless. But those who have 
done most to exhibit the great power of hypnotism and suggestion in 
the curing or alleviation of various internal complaints (especially of 
the nervous system), are first of all by many years Liebault and the 
physicians of Nancy, and in later years Bernheim with others, as well 
as some Paris physicians, such as the psychiaters Yoisin and Luys, also 
Fontan and Segard, two Toulon doctors, and Delboeuf of Belgium. 

Some remarkable cases may be mentiened here. 

For instance Voisin relates: "On the thirteenth of December in 
1885 I loitered about the square of a country town in southern France, 
while waiting for a train. A peasant woman, forty years of age, was 
led to me, who for six months had been paralyzed in her right arm ; 
moreover for two years she had suffered from various nervous ailments, 
indicating hysteria. After an attack six months before she became 
paralyzed in her right arm, and after a second attack she had a con- 
tracture in it. The arm was now hanging lax and it could not perform 
the slightest motion ; her wrist and fingers were so much bent inward 
that the long nails had caused wounds in the hand ; the articulations of 
her fingers were swollen and tender. All attempts to straighten the 
fingers only produced severe pain and increased contracture. Feeling- 
remained in the arm and the muscles were not atrophied. I hypno- 
tized her within a quarter of an hour. She fell into a deep sleep and 



94 HYPNOTISM. 

was insensible, and her limbs were completely relaxed. With loud 
voice I now ordered her to straighten the little finger of her right hand. 
She complied, but with great difficulty and with signs of pain. Encour- 
aged by this success, I asked her to straighten the ring-finger ; she did 
that also; then the middle finger; this seemed to be more difficult, but 
she succeeded at last, after which the remaining finger and thumb were 
easily straightened. Her hand was fully stretched, although it evi- 
dently hurt the swollen joints; but she moved her fingers with increas- 
ing facility, and the contracture had entirely disappeared. Her arm 
was still immovable. I then ordered the invalid to move her arm and 
assured her that she could do it; she succeeded, at first with difficulty, 
but finally so that she moved it as easily as the left one. The by- 
standers regarded the cure as a miracle. Four months later, I received 
the information that the woman was well and could use her arm for 
every purpose." 

By the same means Yoisin also succeeded in curing several mental 
diseases, such as paitial delirium, maniacal exaltation with or without 
hallucinations, moral disturbances and irresistible impulses to evil 
actions. 

His first patient was Jeanne S,. aged twenty-two, an hysterical wo- 
man suffering from maniacal attacks, hallucinations of hearing and de- 
lirium. Although it sometimes took him two hours to hypnotize her, 
by making her stare at her index-finger, which was held above the root 
of her nose, yet he always succeeded in cutting short the most violent 
maniacal attacks; and by suggestion he usually decided that her sleep 
should last ten or twelve hours — once even twenty-three hours. As r 
however, she again proved vicious during her wakeful state, he begart 
to try to influence her character and morals by suggestion during the 
sleep, and in this manner he succeeded in changing these so that she 
grew not only healthy but virtuous, and afterwards became an excel- 
lent nurse. Thus in this case hypnotism was both a remedy and a 
means of moral improvement. 

The second case was that of a hystero-epileptic girl, twenty-five 
years old, who for five years had had frequent and violent maniacal 
attacks, with hallucinations and dilirium. She was hypnotized during the 
attacks, but with great difficulty, as five nurses had to hold her and her 
eyelids had to be forced upon to compel her to stare at the magnesium- 
light. In the beginning it took one or two hours to put her to sleep. 
Suggestion decided how long she should sleep — usually twenty-three 
hours and a half. Thus during the attacks she was kept unconscious for 
seven days and nights, except for half an hour each day ; for toward 
the end of the half-hour she again began to become maniacal. While 
she had always before refused to take medicine or food during the at- 
tacks, she now willingly took these during the hypnosis. Towards the 
end of the treatment, which lasted four months, she was kept asleep 



HYPNOTISM. 95 

only three fourths of the time. After awhile the attacks ceased entire- 
ly, and did not return during the fifteen months that have since 
elapsed, and the woman became u polite, sociable," and even "amiable," 
and got a position at La Salpetriere as laundress. 

The third case was that of a girl twenty-five years old, with eroto- 
mania and maniacal attacks with hallucinations of sight and hearing 
concerning an imaginary lover. These hallucinations ceased almost 
immediately after the first hypnosis, during which she was forbidden 
to see or hear the lover any more, and she soon became entirely well. 

The fourth patient was a seamstress, seventeen years of age, who 
had lost her step -father. She fell into deep melancholy, refused her 
food and had hallucinations in which she heard and saw her deceased 
step-father. By suggestion under hypnosis she was soon cured. 

The fifth case was a hysterical married woman, twenty-five years 
old, with visual hallucinations, ideas of poisoning, hemi-ansesthesia and 
color-blindness of the left eye. She was relieved of all these symptoms 
and became well through suggestion under hypnosis. 

The sixth case, a woman forty-eight years of age, with severe mel- 
ancholy, hallucinations of sight and hearing and suicidal tendency, 
was cured in the same way in three seances. 

All these cases were treated at La Salpetriere, and the results 
were corroborated by the assistant physicians. 

Voisin has many times used the same treatment in his private 
practice and with equal success. One of his patients was a married 
woman, twenty-five years old, reduced to a skeleton, with melancholy 
of eight years standing, the greatest distaste for food, offensive breath 
and pains in the stomach. By suggestion she was compelled to eat, 
first during the sleep, then also during the wakeful state. The pains 
disappeared, she gained flesh, and was soon cured in body and mind. 
Another woman with mania was in this way made not only to eat but 
also to become mild and kind to her husband. 

Voisin mentions several prominent physicians who have had equally 
favorable experiences of the practical value of the new method, such as 
Seglas, Lombroso, Grasset and Dufour. Although the method is said 
to require very patient and varied application, yet the result is so rapid 
and radical that no physician should hesitate to try it in the treatment 
of the mentally diseased. After the hypnotic sleep has once been 
successfully produced (which however is generally difficult when the 
mentally deranged are concerned) therapeutic suggestion should be 
used after the first or second seance, as it is a necessary adjunct of the 
hypnosis. You gently affect one hallucination at a time, without trying 
to gain too much all at once — which might confuse. The suggestions 
are given loudly, with precision and imposing authority. The patient 
is assured that a certain voice, vision or fixed idea will soon disappear. 
Strangely enough, persons seem blindly to believe and to obey what is 



93 HYPNOTISM. 

tlius impressed upon their conception during the somnambulic state. 
Doubt and objection are then asleep. 

According to Yoisin's experience, mental diseases of many years' 
standing have thus been cured in two or three seances. Hysterical 
persons have proved most susceptible to the method, but he has also 
succeeded with epileptics, dipsomaniacs and others mentally diseased. 
Finally Voisin exclaims: "It would be fortunate for the mentally 
diseased, if they were all susceptible to hypnotism." 

Besides hysterical paralysis, contractures, convulsions, ansesthesise, 
hyperesthesia and other nervous ailments which are always the most 
encouraging objects for this method of treatment, tonic spasm, chorea, 
writer's cramp, and other allied diseases have also been successfully 
treated ; the genuine epilepsy, however, seems to defy this as well as 
all other means. The method is very effective against insomnia. By 
this means, the bad habit in children of wetting the bed in their sleej) 
lias been entirely cured by Liebault in a number of cases. Among 
other disorders of the urinary canals success has especially crowned the 
treatment of obstinate spasmodical strictures. Disorders of digestion 
have been cured by improving the appetite, by checking the pains in the 
stomach during digestion and by promoting the evacuations by means 
of suggestions. Disorders of menstruation have been relieved and the 
menses have been restored after a long absence. 

Among the most important diseases which have been the objects 
of the hypnotizers' successful experiments, may be mentioned alcohol- 
ism and the morbid thirst or dipsomania, which borders on insanity. 
Here, too, Yoisin has rendered distinguished service. But Fontan and 
Segard also speak of successful cures. The following are instances 
from the last-named. 

T., a smith, thirty years old, was admitted to the hospital of 
Toulon on account of gastro-enteritis and delirium tremens. His ap- 
pearance was that of a drunkard: red face; red and sore eyes; general 
tremor ; he suffered from insomnia with terrible nightmares ; hallucina- 
tions of hearing even in the day-time; no appetite ; thick-coated tongue; 
constipation after previous diarrhoeic evacuations ; had had three at- 
tacks of delirium during the previous days ; was gloomy and uneasy ; 
speech incoherent ; was cared for in an isolated room. The first at- 
tempt to hypnotize him failed ; by the example of another patient he 
was afterwards successfully put to sleep. Suggestion on the thirty- 
first of August : "No delirium ; no nightmare ; sound sleep ; three or 
four evacuations to-morrow." Upon awaking he was somewhat dazed 
but remembered the suggestion. During the night he slept well, with- 
out dreams — something very unusual— and later in the day he had two 
evacuations. Suggestion Sept. 1st : " You will have no more tremor ; 
you will have neither dizziness, nor delirium, nor fear ; sleep without 
dreams ; better appetite." 



HYPNOTISM. 97 

Sept. 4. Since the first suggestion he had suffered neither from 
sleeples:-ness nor from night-mare or hallucinations. He was con- 
tented, ate a great deal, and had five or six diarrhceic evacuations every- 
day. Suggestion "T. should have only two operations a day." 

Sept. 16. Quiet as before ; no diarrhoea smce the last suggestion. 

Sept. 21. Bad dreams and diarrhoea had reappeared; otherwise all 
right. Suggestion: "T. must not dream or be frightened; the nights 
should be calm; only one good evacuation a day." 

Sept. 24. Again some uneasiness after three days and nights of 
perfect quiet. Suspicion that he had procured some liquor. Sugges- 
tion: "No uneasiness. Sleep every night for ten hours without fear 
and without dreams; absolutely forbidden to taste liquor." Upon 
awaking he showed great fear of drinking. 

Sept. 28. Since the last seance no disturbance, no feeling of sick- 
ness. The nights excellent ; the appetite good ; the general condition 
very satisfactory. Digestion normal. Before his dismissal, he was 
given one more suggestion, to keep away from strong liquors. He 
took an oath to do so. The physician, however, did not put much faith 
in his word and has not heard anything of him since. 

The following is another and similar case. 

Joseph B , twenty-eight years old, admitted on account of bloody 
expectoration ; had on Sept. 4, an attack of delirium tremens, with 
strong idea of being pursued. On the fifteenth of September, this 
idea still continued besides sleeplessness, nightmare, loss of appetite, 
debility and general tremor. He was then quite easily hypnotized. 
Suggestion: "Steady walk; no tremor in the hands ; better strength." 
Upon awakening, much less tremor. The dynamometer, which before 
the sleep showed a strength of thirty-two kilogr. in the right hand 
and twenty-six kilogr. in the left, showed after the wakening thirty- 
eight and thirty-one kilogr., respectively. 

Sept. 17. The tremor diminished ; the legs stronger ; still night- 
mare and loss of appetite. Suggestion: " No headache, no nightmare ; 
strength in the hands; good appetite." The dynamometer showed re- 
spectively forty-eight and thirty-five kilogr. 

Sept. 20. Since the last suggestion no more nightmare. Sleep and 
appetite returned. The legs and hands trembled no more. 

Sept. 23. Dismissed after the suggestion to keep sober. 

The third case, from the same author. 

Louis J., laborer, forty-eight years old, admitted on Sept. 18, 
1886, for " hallucination of persecution of three months' standing; dan- 
gerous to himself and his family." For many years an alcoholic with 
sallow face and dull eyes ; murmured some incoherent words — among 
others "very tired;" considerable tremor of hands and tongue ; poor 
appetite ; vomiting mornings ; sleeplessness ; hallucinations day and 
night ; usually he saw frightful animals. 



98 HYP SO TISM. 

Sept. 20. He had screamed during two whole nights and pounded 
on the door, because he had heard voices threatening to kill him. 
An effort to put him to sleep by hypnotism, succeeded better than was 
expected. Suggestion: "The tremor in the hands will cease ; no more 
hallucinations ; no terrifying visions, either at night or in the day ; 
to-night you will sleep for eight hours without dreams." 

Sept. 23. Since the suggestion considerable improvement, He 
talked sensibly, had no hallucinations during the day, but was dis- 
turbed by night-mare the night before ; general tremor remaining in 
his hands, which had been tremulous for twenty years ; difficulty in 
writing. Suggestion: "Good appetite; no hallucinations, either 
night or day ; good sleep ; no more any tremor." 

Upon awaking, he wrote considerably better. 

Sept. 24. Quiet during the day ; better appetite ; no hallucina- 
tion ; a better night ; his sleep less uneasy ; some dreams. Suggestion 
the same as yesterday. 

His writing had gained still more steadiness. 

Sept. 25. Felt well ; no dreams. 

Sept. 29. J. declared himself well ; only a slight tremor remained 
in his hands, not to be compared with the former trembling. He was 
dismissed after still another suggestion. 

This man, who did not suffer from temporary delirium tremens 
but from chronic alcoholism with confirmed ideas of persecution was 
thus cured by a few suggestions. 

It is well enough to be able in this manner to relieve by hyp- 
notism and suggestion such diseases as are sequels of drunkenness ; 
but this method would be still more valuable if it could stop the 
drinking itself, and the craving for strong liquors. On this point 
also we have some very valuable researches and experiments, especially 
those of A. Voisin, the distinguished physician and psychiater. In 
Kevue de V Hypnotisme, Aug. and Sept. 1887, he published four cases 
of morbid craving for drink, or dipsomania, which were cured by this 
process. 

The first case was made public in the congress at Grenoble 1885. 
It was that of a man of Rouen, thirty-five years old, who had had 
regular attacks of dipsomania twice a month for ten years, each time 
for ten consecutive days — thus no long intervals of sobriety. Even 
at the first seance, V. succeeded in hypnotizing him, and by sugges- 
tions during the sleep, in two days he succeeded in curing him so 
radically that no attack appeared during the two following years — a 
really brilliant result in a disease which usually defies the most 
energetic and long-continued treatment. 

We know that this terrible disease (dipsomania), which is usually 
combined with a feeble constitution and with a nervous temperament, 
also attacks women, and not seldom — at least in France and England 



HYPNOTISM. 99 

— those of the higher classes. Not long ago V. also tried his method 
on women. 

On the twenty-seventh of March in 1887, he was called to Mrs. X., 
forty-two years old, who, for four or five years at every menstruation, 
had an irresistible craving for drink, which she satisfied by drinking 
five or six litres of wine daily — besides brandy — so that she caused 
scandal in her noble family. She had grown sallow and thin, with dull 
eyes and a careless and indifferent expression. She was exceedingly 
irritable, disputed with the whole family and made disagreeable 
scenes. She had a continual headache. She either did not sleep at 
all or else very uneasily, being disturbed by dreams and nightmares, 
which persecuted her even during the day. Her breath was redolent 
of alcohol and she had a constant thirst, which she was incessantly 
trying to quench. 

On the twenty-ninth of March, V. began with the hypnotic treat- 
ment. By applying his left hand to her head he produced a desire for 
sleep. Afterwards she had an intense ache across her head. On the 
thirty-first of March, she was hypnotized by staring at the stopper of 
a bottle, and then received the suggestion that she would not have any 
headache ; that she would sleep well during the night, without any 
nightmare, and that she would awake when Y. put his finger on her 
right ear. And in this way she was awakened after half an hour. 

On the second of April she told Y. that she had slej^t well since 
the last time he saw her, and that she had not been tormented by any 
nightmare or headache. She was hypnotized and " suggested " to have 
no more thirst between meals, and not to take more than half a bottle 
of wine at each meal; furthermore, never to drink any brandy or 
liqueurs. A few days later her husband said that his wife was more 
quiet, that she had no more bursts of impatience, nor showed any 
signs of drunkenness. The same treatment was repeated a few more 
times. Her physical health was soon restored ; her breath grew 
sweet and free from alcoholic vapors ; her eyes became bright and her 
temper good and even, so that she could again take charge of her 
house. From the first of May her husband consideied her fully cured, 
and as late as the first of September no relapse had taken place. 

The third case was also that of a woman, Mrs. F., thirty-one years 
old. 

On the nineteenth of April, 1887, Yoisin was consulted. Her 
Jiusband complained that for six years she had been plainly intoxi- 
cated every eight or ten days, though he had not been able to surprise 
her in the act of drinking. Now she was in just such a state; with 
wild looks, alcoholic breath, red lips and cheeks, incoherent speech, 
reeling gait and trembling hands. But she firmly denied having 
indulged in liquors. She either had no sleep or was disturbed by 
horrifying dreams. She had a constant ache and heaviness in the head. 



100 HYPNOTISM. 

Several modes of treatment had been tried in vain. On the- 
twenty-seventh of April, V. succeeded in hypnotizing her by staring at 
her eyes and by pressure of his hand on her head. Suggestion : not 
to drink, except at meals. 

On the second of May, her husband returned and said that she^ 
had not been drinking since the hypnosis, and that her sleep had been 
quiet. She was now hypnotized for the second time and received the 
suggestion not to drink brandy, liqueurs, or anything between meals, 
and not to have any thirst except at meals. 

May 9th. She had not shown any sign of drunkenness; her sleep 
had been quiet and her temper good, and she now worked industriously. 
Her cheeks were no longer flushed nor was her breath alcoholic. Her 
appearance was now smiling and amiable, and she thanked V. for 
having cured her. 

On the first of September, her husband declared, that his wife 
was now like herself — as she had been seven or eight years before. 

The fourth case was still more difficult, but the success was all the 
more brilliant. This patient was also a woman, forty-five years old. 
For twelve years a widow, she had tried to drown her sorrow in the 
cup. Especially during the last seven years, she had been in the habit 
of getting thoroughly intoxicated with wine or brandy several times a 
month. Her temper had become abominable ; she had constant scenes 
and quarrels with her children ; she did not care for her home ; she 
had constant thirst, and said she would drink till she became insane. 
She did not sleep any more, had the most horrible hallucinations, had 
to be watched at night, wished to smash everything, also had suicidal 
tendency ; for several days had refused to leave her bed and had had 
slimy vomits. She detested everything that she had loved before: 
both her children, God and religion. 

Only with difficulty was she persuaded to receive V. on the eight- 
eenth of July, 1887. She turned her back to him, did not wish to see 
any physician, vomited and complained of pain in the pit of her stomach 
and of extreme thirst; she asked for wine. First, ordinary means 
were prescribed to alleviate the vomiting. These succeeded. On the 
twenty-second and twenty- third of July, V. tried in vain to hypnotize 
her. The third attempt, on the twenty-fourth, was successful. 
Although she gave no sign that she heard anything, she was given the 
following suggestion: "No thirst, except at meals; not to drink 
between these; at the meals only two glasses of diluted claret; to 
shun undiluted wine, brandy and liqueurs. This is the way to regain 
your health and happiness." 

July 25th. She had not felt any more thirst except at meals. She 
was quiet and had not attempted to drink either wine or cordials. 
She was then hypnotized more profoundly than on the previous day. 
To the former suggestions was added : To sleep for six hours during 
the night — from eleven to five. 



HYPNOTISM. 101 

July 26th. Her sleep lasted exactly the prescribed time. She was 
calm and did not vomit any more ; the pain in the pit of her stomach, 
was gone, but she still had a headache. Lethargic hypnosis ; the same 
suggestions with the addition • No nightmare, no headache. 

Aug. 2nd. Everything satisfactory except her headache, which 
remained in the daytime. At the request of her brother, she was then 
given the suggestion to occupy herself with her household duties and 
with her children ; to regain a quiet temper ; to go to church and thank 
God for health regained, etc. ; to thank her brother for his sacrifices 
for her sake; to no more have any thirst, headache , sleeplessness or 
nightmare. 

On Aug. 4, she met V. with the most cheerful countenance, said 
that she had been to church, and thanked V. with emotion. Her 
brother said that she had begun to take care of her house, was on good 
terms with her children, slept well, but had some headache. But her 
hand still trembled, so that she could not write a testimonial needed 
by her son. She was then easily hypnotized, and V. again gave her 
the usual suggestions, adding that she would without difficulty write 
him a letter of thanks. The next day she wrote the testimonial with- 
out trembling. On the seventh of August she Avrote the following 
letter to Voisin. 

" You had saved my life ! You have succeeded in suppressing that 
thirst, which consumed me, and which was my misfortune. You have 
given back to me the quiet sleep I had missed for so long. You have 
restored me to a happy existence, which was crushed by sorrow and 
suffering. You have awakened anew in me my old religious feelings ; 
my temper is again good and mild ; you have restored me to the 
normal condition in which I should have been, had I not lost my 
husband, and had I not been sick for so long. At mass, I shall pray for 
you and yours. A thousand times thanks ! Receive, sir " — etc. 

On the twenty-first of August Mrs. X. went into the country with 
her children, well and normal in mind and body. 

Voisin thinks that these successful experiments open a new field 
for the employment of suggestion in overcoming various bad habits 
and vices which cause diseases, sorrow and unhappiness to mankind. 

At the second international congress against the abuse of alcoho- 
lic liquors, opened in Zurich on the ninth of September 1887, both 
Ladame, of Geneva, and the eminent psychiater Forel reported several 
cases of dipsomania, which they had cured by means of hypnotic 
suggestion. Forel has also had decided success with this means in 
the treatment of mental diseases. I myself have under treatment a 
young man suffering from insomnia, with strong hallucinations of 
hearing. After a few suggestions a very decided improvement has 
taken place. 

Thus hypnotic suggestion affects not only physical sufferings and 



102 HYPNO TISM. 

bodily diseases, but also the psychical life, so that bad habits can be 
suppressed and a depraved character can be improved and changed ; 
in other words, this means can be used to restore both the psychical 
and the physical life to the paths of righteousness and health. 



CHAPTEK X. 

HYPNOTISM AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION, OR AS A MORAL REMEDY. 

IN 1860 Dr. Durand. wrote : "Braidism provides us with the basis of 
an intellectual and moral orthopcedia* which will certainly some 
day be introduced into schools and penal institutions." But it is princi- 
pally the school of Nancy which of late years has studied the influence 
of hypnotism on the character, or its moral and pedagogical signifi- 
cance; and Liebault, in particular, has studied this phase of the sub- 
ject for several years, and in many cases has observed such an influ- 
ence both on the young and the middle-aged, especially the former. 
Public attention was further attracted to this question by Dr. Beril- 
lon's report at the congress of Nancy, in August 1886, before the 
pedagogical delegates, who received the subject with such interest, 
that their honorary president, Hement, declared it to be the opinion 
of the body, that recourse should be had to hypnotism in those cases 
where the pedagogue acknowledges his complete inability, and that 
this idea ought to become a starting-point for a real moral orthopcedia. 

Liebault has acquired the greatest experience concerning the value 
of hypnotism in this respect ; he claims to have tried the method in 
several thousand cases, always with some good effect and never causing 
any harm. A big and strong boy, who was exceedingly lazy and neg- 
ligent, and who constantly stood at the foot of his class, was so changed 
by only one hypnotic seance, that he soon took the first place. A 
young idiot, who had been unable to learn either to write or to count, 
and who had been listless during the instruction, became by oft 
repeated hypnotizing so attentive and diligent, that in two months he 
had learned the alphabet and the four fundamental rules of arithmetic. 

Bernheim states that all children are susceptible to suggestion. 
Usually it is only necessary to keep their eyes closed for a few seconds 
or minutes, and to assure them that they will go to sleep or that they 
already are asleep. But even when awake, they are susceptible in a 
measure. From his own experiments Berillon gives the following 
practical rules. If you have to deal with stupid, moderately gifted or 
lazy children, you can confine yourself to a verbal suggestion, without 
hypnotizing them. You inspire the child with the greatest confidence, 
isolaie it, put your hand on its forehead and make the suggestions you 

* Greek, orthos, right ; paidia, instruction. 



HYPNOTISM. 103 

desire, with gentleness, precision and patience. If you have more 
obstinate, deeply depraved or vicious children, the suggestion has 
better effect during hypnotic sleep. By repeated seances you will suc- 
ceed, even in difficult cases, in correcting bad instincts and in making 
the children good, virtuous and attentive. Hypnotic suggestion, guided 
by an experienced physician, should be tried in all such cases, at least 
where other educational attemps have failed. 

A professor of philosophy — Blum — brings against the method 
the objection that it seems to suppress the individual moral liberty ; 
that it transforms man into a machine, and that it may be misused so 
as to inspire the children with bad instincts. Also juris consult Des- 
jardins has raised similar objections and spoken of a " moral slavery." 
It would seem, however, as if the liberty of children to do evil or to 
develop in a bad direction were one which does not deserve to be 
defended. 

Furthermore Berillon calls attention to the power of example on 
children, both for good and for evil, and also that that which works 
through the example is suggestion in the proper sense of the word, 
viz. — a self-suggestion in the child, when it imitates others. As we 
have already shown, all authority — therefore the teacher's or educator's 
— acts on the child by a kind of suggestion, and in all ages this has 
been more or less consciously used by pedagogues. Feuchtersleben, 
especially, in his "Hygiene de l'Ame," strongly advises that you should 
try to develop children's gifts, by making them believe that they 
already have a certain ability in the direction of what you wish to 
develop. 

In more difficult cases, however, this simple form of suggestion 
does not suffice, but recourse should be had to hypnotic suggestion, of 
which Berillon gives another striking example in the following case. 

Already as a babe in arms, the boy Emil P., now eleven years old, 
had acquired the habit of continually holding the second and third 
fingers of his left hand in his mouth up to the middle of the second 
phalanx. Ever since then, and especially evenings, he was in the 
liabit of sucking his fingers and he could not go to sleep without hold- 
ing them in his mouth. He also did it in the daytime, when he was not 
obliged to use both hands for something. In order to overcome this 
very bad habit, everything had been tried — entreaties, threats, castiga- 
tion and other forcible means, but nothing helped. Constant disorders 
of the digestion were caused by his ugly habit of putting his often dirty 
iingers in his mouth. His nails were bitten off and his fingers were 
covered with thick swellings, when B. was consulted. He hypnotized 
the boy in a few minutes by letting him stare at a brilliant object and 
by suggesting sleep. By verbal suggestion he then ordered him to go 
to sleep of his own accord in the evenings without putting his fingers 
into his mouth. This suggestion was repeated three times, while the 



104 HYPNOTISM. 

boy was asleep for five minutes. Awakened, he declared that he 
certainly had heard B. speak, but that he had been completely dazed 
and without will and that he did not remember what B. said. On the 
next day his parents declared that on the previous evening to their 
great astonishment, the boy had gone to sleep without putting his 
fingers into his mouth. During the day he sometimes had the tempta- 
tion, but resisted. To his grandmother he made the following 
confession: "It is strange that every moment I have a desire to put 
my lingers in my mouth, but I feel that I cannot do UP 

He was then hypnotized for the second time — more easily and 
more profoundly than before — and the same suggestion was twice 
repeated in a loud voice. When he was awakened after a few minutes, 
he knew nothing of what had passed. Since then he has not once 
yielded to his old temptation ; his sleep has been quiet and sounder 
than before; his stomach has been cured and he has enjoyed good 
health. 

Thus a confirmed habit of many years' standing, which had 
resisted all other treatment, was overcame by even the first hypnotic 
suggestion. 

In some of the above descriptions we have proof of how sugges- 
tion, even in adult persons, changes the character and removes bad 
habits. Thus the significance of suggestion, as a moral educator for 
both young and old, is sufficiently proved to give a well-founded hope 
that in it, mankind has gained one of the most powerful means not only 
of physical but also of moral improvement. 



CHAPTER XI. 



HYPNOTISM AND THE LAW. 



HYPNOTISM comes in contact with the law at more than one 
point, and many and intricate are the medico-legal questions 
which it has already raised. The most important of these questions 
are: 

1. Can the hypnotized be physically or mentally injured by hyp- 
notism % 

2. Can the hypnotized fall victim to crime ? 

3. Can the hypnotized be used in the service of crime as a ready 
tool without a will ? 

4. Are the hypnotized responsible 1 

5. Should hypnotism be prohibited % 

To these main questions we will try to give answers, and at the 
same time will cite explanatory examples. 

1. Can one hypnotized be physically or mentally injured by hyp- 
notism f 



HYPNOTISM. 105 

By hypnotism a natural, normal sleep is not produced in a person, 
but a sleep-like nervous condition, which must be considered rather as 
a pathological than as a physiological state ; rather as a morbid and 
abnormal than as a healthy and normal condition ; in many cases 
indeed it is more like mental disease than physical health aud sound 
mind. But all morbid, artificially-produced conditions of the nervous 
system, even if they are soon changed, must cause an over-irritation 
and weakening of the system, and this in a greater degree the of tener 
the experiments are repeated. Experience also teaches that nervously 
weak persons are usually more easily hypnotized, and thit the of tener 
the hypnosis is repeated, the sooner and more easily does it appear in 
the same individual, because the nervous system grows more sensitive, 
more irritable and weaker. This weakness may go so far, that hypno- 
sis takes place from the slightest cause, even against one's will, as we 
have seen in the case of the subject who became cataleptic by merely 
staring at her reflected image in a mirror. Also an involuntary som- 
nambulistic state can easily arise in one who has often been hypno- 
tized ; and of course during that state the subject cannot freely con- 
trol his mind or actions. Several cases are on record, where the sub- 
jects of professional magnetizers, after only one or two experiments, have 
become sick and debilitated — and even melancholic and mentally 
deranged. It is true that hypnotism provides the means by which a 
cure can often be effected where harm has been done, viz. suggestion : 
but for all that, prudence insists on a careful handling of a power 
w T hich can so thoroughly control both the physical and mental life. 

We have previously shown how this means can be advantageously 
used for the improvement of man's character — as a powerful means of 
moral education. But whether the effect shall be good or bad rests 
entirely with the operator, and in the hands of an unscrupulous hyp- 
notizer is as likely to be misused as not ; for no one is so easily led as 
a hypnotized subject, and the bad instincts and impulses can be 
awakened as easily as the noble ones. Bailly's report in 1784 pointed 
out how easily passions could be awakened by the close contact 
between the magnetizer and his female subject, especially by the passes 
then in rise and other methods altogether too familiar. Hence it is of 
the greatest importance that hypnotism be praticed only by honorable, 
conscientious and pure-minded physicians, who do not misuse the 
great influence and sympathy which they gain over their patients by 
this means. 

But the hypnotized can be injured not only by the weakening effect 
of the hypnosis on the nervous system, but also by suggestions of such 
a kind that with or without the operator's intention they cause injurious 
and even fatal effects. Even in those not hypnotized imagination can 
be so strong that they may be frightened to disease or death. The story 
is told of a young girl, sixteen years of age, who was nearly frightened 



106 HYPNOTISM. 

to death by the joke of a kinsman, merely by his making her believe 
that she had taken a strong poison instead of a harmless drug. All 
the symptoms of poisoning were f ally developed, when at the last minute 
she was informed of the joke and was saved. 

Quite recently a medico-legal examination was made of a woman 
who was supposed to have shortened her life by poison. The inves- 
tigation brought to light the fact that she had taken perfectly 
harmless insect-powder, in the belief that it was a deadly poison, and as 
no other cause of death was found, it must be supposed that her imagi- 
nation as to the efficiency of the powder had caused her death. 

With the consent of Napoleon III., a scientist had a criminal tied 
to a table, with his eyes blindfolded, under the pretext that he was 
going to open the man's carotid artery and let him bleed to death. 
With a needle he made a slight scratch on the criminal's neck and had 
water dropping into a vessel that stood underneath, while all around 
an awful silence prevailed. The victim, believing that he heard his life- 
blood flowing away, really died after six minutes. 

A horrible joke by some Scotch students produced the same 
result. 

A disagreeable janitor was one night lured into a room, where he 
was solemnly tried and sentenced to death by decapitation. The terri- 
fied man was led into a corner and placed on a block beside which 
stood a sharp axe ; after his eyes had been blindfolded, he was given a 
blow on the neck with a wet towel, and when they lifted him up, he 
was dead. 

If such things can take place with waking persons, how much 
more easily might it not then be done with hypnotized and " sug- 
gested " ones. 

J 2. Can the hypiiotized fall victims to crime f 

The unconsciousness and loss of will, which are so easily caused 
in the hypnotized, can, of course, with the greatest facility be misued 
for immoral and criminal purposes. Kape, murder, robbery, theft ? 
abduction, etc. are then easy to accomplish. In the beginning of this 
century, the people of India knew that the easiest way to steal children 
and carry them away was to magnetize them. Such thieves were 
known in India under the name, thugs or bheels, and in 1820, a band 
was discovered whose members, in the course of twenty years, had 
stolen millions of children. A child recovered at that time was entirely 
stupid and did not recognize her father until she had been de-hypno- 
tized by the ceremonies of the Buddhist priests. 

In 1845, a case of this kind was minutely described by Esdaile. 

In France some remarkable medico-legal cases have occurred with 
reference to crime against morality under hypnosis, one of them com- 
bined with abduction ; but we do not consider it propel to quote here 






HYPNOTISM. 107 

any detailc of these horrible and shocking occurrences, which we hope 
will stand alone in the history of misused hypnotism. 

Besides by robbery and theft the hypnotized might easily be 
deprived of their property in a more delicate manner, so that it would 
look as if they voluntarily gave it away, if only a powerful suggestion 
were given in that direction. In this respect Liegeois has made very 
instructive experiments. 

For instance, he said to Miss E., who was very susceptible to sug- 
gestions even without being hypnotized and in an apparently normal 
state: — "You know that I have loaned you five hundred francs; you 
must give me a note for that sum." — " But I do not owe you anything; 
you have not loaned me anything." — "You have a poor memory, 
madam ; I will remind you of all the circumstances of the loan. Yes- 
terday you asked me for this sum and I gave you a roll of twenty- 
franc pieces." — Under the influence of his honest expression and 
decided assertion, she began to hesitate and her thoughts became con- 
fused ; she searched her memory ; finally it obeyed his suggestion and 
showed her the matter as he had stated it ; she acknowledged her debt 
and wrote a formal note for five hundred francs. As she was of age 
the note was perfectly valid before the law. Her mother was greatly 
astonished when she saw the note, and said to her daughter : " You 
have not told me anything about this loan ; where have you spent the 
money." — Somewhat embarrassed she looked at Liegeois. — "It is very 
simple; you have deposited it in the savings-bank." — She acknowledged 
this as entirely correct. 

M. Liegeois, who is Professor of Jurisprudence at Nancy, seems to 
have a special gift for making women believe that they owe him 
money, and he does not even need to hypnotize them in order to con- 
vince them of it. The following cases were reported in 1884 before 
the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politique s. 

" Mrs. O. is a young and very intelligent lady ; she has received 
an excellent education ; at first she energetically resisted all sugges- 
tion, but gradually yielded. I made her believe that she owed me one 
thousand francs and asked for her note. She obstinately refused to 
give it, and declared that she owed me nothing and that she would 
never acknowledge any debt to me. I insisted. She began to hesi- 
tate ; she remembered it, acknowledged it before several witnesses, and 
wrote the note." 

On another occasion, when she seemed fully normal, he told the 
same lady in the presence of her husband and several other witnesses, 
that she had promised to pay him, on account of her husband's indebt- 
edness to him, one hundred thousand francs. At first she denied that 
such a thing had ever been mentioned ; afterward she searched her 
memory, finally found that he was right, and wrote a bond for the sum 
named. 



108 HYPNOTISM. 

In the same way the hypnotizer can abuse his influence over the 
sleeper, by compelling him to make out donations or to make his will 
in the other's favor, and even to take upon himself the worst fictitious 
crimes. 

This is an experiment in that direction by Liegeois. 

He made Miss E., who was apparently in a wakeful and normal 
state, believes that she had killed one of her friends, introduced her to 
the justice of the peace, who was present, and toldher that the questions 
the latter was going to ask her were entirely serious and that her welfare 
depended on her answers. "Why have you killed your friend?" — "I 
was angry with her on account of a dispute." — "With what instrument 
did you commit the murder? " — " With a knife." — " Where is the body 
of the victim ? " — " At her home." — "You know what penalty befalls you 
for such a crime 1 " — " Yes, perfectly ; but that makes no difference to 
me." 

There would even be no difficulty in making away with an enemy or 
objectionable person, in a manner which would not betray the originator 
of the crime. It is only necessary to hypnotize the victim and to give 
him the suggestion that he will commit suicide. With the strongest 
possible love of life he will havs great difficulty in resisting such a 
suggestion. 

There is still another way in which the hypnotized can be injured, 
viz. — by drawing forth under hypnosis confessions and secrets which 
they would not voluntarily disclose when awake. Of course this may 
not succeed with all somnambulists, for some are very cautions and 
reserved and some may even play the hypocrite, and lie and deceive 
their hypnotizer. But the great majority will prove very frank and 
outspoken, and during the sleep may much too easily hurt themselves or 
others by revealing secrets which ought to be kept. 

Hence the answer to the second question would be, that the 
hypnotized may fall hopless victims to the most criminal and harmful 
actions of all kinds, not only while they are asleep, but also after they 
have been awakened, and certain sensitive individuals even without 
being hypnotized. There lies such an infernal power in the hands of 
the hypnotizer that every one ought to be strictly forbidden to meddle 
with hypnotism, except those who assume the responsibilities of a 
physician and who have the people's welfare and woe in their hands. 



3. Can one hypnotized be used in the service of crime as a ready 
tool without a vrill? 

From the cases already mentioned it plainly follows that the hyp- 
notized can by all kinds of suggestions be made not only to harm them' 
selves but also others, and that they may even be irresistibly driven to 
any crime. It is chiefly in this that the darkest side and the worst 
dangers of hypnotism are found. 



HYP NO TISM. 109 

Also of this Liegeois and others have reported some striking 
experimental proofs. For instance L. made the above-mentioned 
Miss E. fire a pistol at her own mother, thinking it was loaded. 

A young man, twenty-five years old, in whom L. could at pleasure 
produce catalepsy, ansesthesis, illusions of taste, and positive and nega- 
tive hullucinations, even without hypnotizing him, was once presented 
by L. with a white powder, and told that it contained arsenic. " You 
will immediately go to your aunt's ; there you will take a glass of water, 
pour the arsenic into it, dissolve it well in the water and offer the 
poisoned drink to your aunt." — "Very well." — In the evening L. was 
imformed that the attempt at poisoning had been punctually performed. 

On another occasion, L. chose at random from a party of five or 
six somnambulists, who met at Liebault's, a Mrs. G., took a revolver 
and some cartridges, went out into the garden, loaded only one of the 
chambers, fired it against a piece of pasteboard and returned showing 
the hole from the bullet. Id less than fifteen seconds, he suggested 
to Mrs. G. to kill with the revolver a Mr. P., an old magistrate, who 
was present. Without hesitation Mrs. G. fired a shot (from the 
unloaded pistol, of course) at Mr. P. Immediately questioned by the 
police inspector, who was in the room, she acknowledged her crime 
with the utmost indifference. She had killed P. because he did not 
please her. They might just as well arrest her ; she knew very well what 
punishment she w^ould get ; if they took her life, she would go to 
the other world, like her victim, whom she saw stretched out before 
her, bathed in his own blood. She was asked if she had not received 
the idea of murder from Liebault. — No, she had done it from her own 
impulse ; she alone was guilty ; she was resigned to her fate ; she 
would submit to the consequences of her crime without complaining. 

L. said to Mrs. C: "There is Mr. D.; he is thirsty ; give him this 
solution which contains arsenic." — She offered him the glass. Quite 
unexpectedly he asked: "What does this contain ?" — She answered 
frankly: it is arsenic." (For she was not forbidden to mention this.) 
New suggestion : " If you are asked, you will answer that it is sugar 
and water." — At the repeated question she answered : "It is sugar and 
water." D. emptied the glass. 

Finally, we will quote a case which has been reproduced in many 
French journals, the last time in 1886, in the July number of the then 
new periodical Revue de THypnotisme. The idea of this experiment 
was borrowed from Jules Clareties' novel, Jean Momas. 

Under deep hypnosis the girl X. was ordered to sneak into Mr. F.'s 
house the next day at a certain hour, and, with precautions not to be 
discovered, to steal a bracelet, which was lying in a wardrobe at a place 
minutely described, and to carry it cautiously home to the magnetizer, 
so that no one would notice that he was in the plot. Under no con- 
siderations was she allowed to denounce or betray him. The theft was 



110 HYPNOTISM. 

punctually executed on the following day, with the greatest cunning and 
caution, and the trinket was delivered. The same evening, the girl was 
again hypnotized by the Mr. F. who owned the bracelet, who was also a 
magnetizer and in the conspiracy with the first one ; during the hypnosis 
the following conversation occurred : 

"I have been robbed of a bracelet to-day; you know who the thief 
is." — "How can I know that?" — "You cannot be ignorant of it!" — 
« Why so % " — " Because I am sure you know the thief ; tell his name ! " — 
"I cannot." — "But I desire it! " — "And I say that I cannot." — "You 
know that you have no w T ill here ; there is only one — mine ; obey ! " — 
(After a silent resistance and evidently with effort) " Well, it is I ! " — 
" That cannot be possible ! " — " Yes, it is I ! " — " You are not capable of 
such an action. Then you must have been forced to do it ? " — "No ! " — 
"You certainly have not done this of your own accord." — "Yes." — "I 
do not believe you." — "Well, it was not I." — "Who, then?" — "I will 
not tell you ! " — " But I demand it." — " Never ! " — "I command you to 
tell it I " — " That makes no difference ! I shall sooner yield up my life. 
I am sorry, for you have always been good to me ; but I shall never tell 
it." 

Further attempts to induce her to confess failed through her 
obstinacy, which however would probably have been broken, if he had 
persisted long enough. But he proceeded to another experiment dur 
ing the same hypnosis. 

"I seek revenge on somebody ; will you help me ?" — " Willingly !" 
— "You know that Mr. Z " (the first one who magnetized the girl) " is 
my enemy." — "I should think so!" — "Then you must denounce him. 
As soon as you have awaked, you will write to the justice of the peace, 
that you have here been accused of stealing a bracelet, but that you are 
innocent ; that Mr. Z. is the guilty one, and that you saw him commit 
the robbery." — "But this is wrong, as it is I who stole the bracelet." 
— "Never mind ; write this." — "Very well ! But if it were not true V r 
— "But it is true ; for you are much too honest a girl to have stolen. 
It is not you ! Do you hear? It is not you ! I say that it is not you* 
—(With confidence) "Of course not. It is not I!"— "Mr. Z. is the 
thief; you have seen him!" — (Energetically) " Yes, I saw him; it is 
he!" — "You will write to the justice of the peace." — "Yes, immedi- 
ately; I must denounce him." 

Immediately after her awaking, fully convinced of the correctness 
of the accusation, she wrote and sealed a letter to the justice of the 
peace, put a stamp on it, and was just going to mail it, when she was 
was again hypnotized, in order to prevent this. The letter read as 
follows : 
"To the Justice of the Peace: 

"I accomplish a duty. This morning at one o'clock, a bracelet 
was stolen from Mr. F. For a moment I was accused of it, but 



HYPNOTISM. Ill 

unjustly; I swear to it; for I am entirely innocent. The thief — I must 
mention it, because I saw it all — is Mr. Z. (his full name given). It 
was done as follows: he sneaked into F.'s parlor at one o'clock; he 
went through the small entrance on du Four street and he stole one of 
Mrs. F.'s bracelets, which was lying in a wardrobe near the window — 
I saw it. Then he put it into his pocket and went away. ' I swear that 
it is as I have stated. He alone is the thief and I am ready to testify 
to this before the court. N. N. 

The letter was not dictated, but composed by the girl herself. 
When she awoke, she had forgotten the whole story ; but nothing 
would have been easier than to order her during her sleep to appear 
on a certain day and hour — even long afterwards — before a court, and 
to swear to whatever she had been ordered to testify. 

Bottey tells of the following case of suggested theft. 

He said to the hypnotized Miss S. R. : " At about four o'clock 
to-day, you will see a gold watch on a table, and you will not be able 
to resist the temptation of stealing it." At the appointed hour — about 
seven hours after the hypnosis — B. saw her going to the table, on 
which he had placed the gold watch. She took it, looked at it, put it 
back, and repeated these actions severqj. times ; finally, after a long 
internal struggle, she quickly took the watch and put it in her pockety 
while she looked around to see if she was detected. Afterwards, when 
he asked her to return the watch, she showed such mortification on 
account of her involuntary offence that B. was obliged by sugges- 
tion to remove her remembrance of this event. 

By suggestion persons can also be made to commit perjury or to 
bear false witness ; and this can be done in various ways ; either so that 
they make an entirely false statement of occurrences which they have 
really witnessed, or so that they are by retroactive suggestion, 
so-called, made to believe that they have witnessed occurrences which 
in reality never took place j or finally, so that they are by suggestive 
amnesia completely robbed of all memory of what they have 
experienced. 

Thus Bottey, for instance, gave the following suggestive commu- 
nication to S. during s somnambulistic state : " Three days ago, at 11 
P. M., you called on the noted Mr. C. When you arrived at his door, 
you heard loud, quarreling; through the glass door you saw Mr. C. 
disputing with a lady dressed in furs and wearing a hat with red 
feathers. You saw C, in a fit of anger, take a dagger out of his 
pocket and thrust it into the lady's breast. Because you have seen 
this crime, you must denounce him before the court. When you 
awake you will remember what I have now told you, and you will make 
the accusation in writing and ask me to give it to the procureurP And 
that took place : the same day a letter was given to B. for the procureur, 
relating the crime in all its details, the lady's dress not forgotton. 



112 HYPNOTISM. 

In the same way B. convinced another woman that she had seen a 
certain gentleman poison an old lady with opium, and when she awoke, 
she hastened to make the accusation at the proper place. Bottey has 
also suggested suicide and murder to several. Concerning these he 
has made the observation that if they were to be performed immedi- 
ately after awaking, they were done more easily and without hesitation. 
If on the other hand they were not to be performed until sevtra'l 
hours or days afterwards, a hard struggle was usually noticed, as also 
hesitation and resistance against the temptation, to which, however, 
they almost always finally succumbed. 

Once the somnambulist L. was given the order, upon awaking to 
shoot with a revolver at an imaginary person who would appear before 
her. The order was punctually executed, and they made a pretence of 
carrying the corpse out of the room. An hour later Bottey arrived 
with a friend, who pretended to be a justice of the peace, and who 
asked why she had killed the innocent person and if possibly B. had 
not ordered the murder during her sleep. She answered that she was 
entirely unaware that B. had given her any such order ; on the other 
band she was convinced that, when she shot at the stranger, she was 
as if completely mad, and no kuman power could then have prevented 
her from committing this crime. But that persons can by positive 
suggestion be compelled to criminal actions is not all ; by negative sug- 
gestion they can also be made to neglect their duties and to omit what 
they ought to do. Thus they can be prevented from writing their 
name, and even made to forget it, and to forget their duties, etc.; fears 
have even been expressed, that marriage could in this way be prevented, 
if, for instance, by suggestion a rival compelled a bride to say nay at 
the altar. 

By the experiments just related and by several similar ones, it has 
been sufficiently proved that it is possible by hypnotism and suggestion 
to use others as willing tools for the execution of criminal actions of 
almost every kind. The danger of this is greatly increased, partly by 
the fact that the somnambulist, upon awaking, does not remember the 
contents of the suggestion nor who gave it, while at the same time it is 
faithfully and irresistibly performed at the appointed hour ; partly that 
there are persons, but fortunately only those who have been hypnotized 
many times, who, even in an apparently entirely wakeful state are sus- 
ceptible to hypnotism. 

The help a judge could get from the fact that ususally the memory 
of what has happened during one hypnosis reappears during the next, 
(whereby he would only need to again hypnotize the delinquent in 
order to draw the truth from him) can, unfortunately be neutralized 
by the hypnotizer by suggestive amnesia, or an order to forget all that 
was said during the hypnosis. 

To the credit of humanity all these suggested crimes have as yet 



HYPNOTISM. 113 

been confined to the harmless sphere of experimenting, and have 
hardly appeared in real life. But a judge must nevertheless be on his 
guard. No one knows what may happen. 



4. 7s the one, who acts on account of the suggestion of others, 
responsible for his actions? 

Those who voluntarily submit to hypnotism are in about the same 
predicament as those who by alcohol or other narcotic and soporific 
agents — such as opium, hashish, chloral, chloriform etc. — voluntarily pub 
themselves into a state of bondage, where they cannot with certainty 
control their judgment or free will. 

Though such a person should be considered as perfectly irrespon- 
sible as a natural somnambulist for the actions he executes on account 
of suggestion, yet if he knew of the danger to which he exposed him- 
self in being hypnotized, and if he submitted to it voluntarily, he has 
fallen into mental derangement by his own actions, and is then respon- 
sible — according to Chapter V. § 5 of the Swedish law, which accords 
impunity only to such a peison as " without any fault of his has 
become mentally deranged, so that he does not know what he is 
doing." But there are also those who can be hypnotized without their 
knowledge or will, and these must be considered entirely irresponsible. 
The circumstance before mentioned, that the somnambulists are not 
so dependent as the cataleptic automatons, but can make resistance, is 
however so difficult to estimate in each case, that no degree of the 
somnambulist's responsibility can very well be based on it. 

On the other hand it is fully decided that the one most to blame 
for the suggested crime is the hypnotizer, or the one who has given the 
suggestion. On him the severest punishment of the law should fall in 
all its rigor, if he has abused his immense power over his fellow-men. 



5. Should hypnotism be prohibited ? 

Before answering this question, we will cast a rapid glance at the 
present relation of the law to the practice of magnetism or hypnotism 
in different countries. 

We have already seen how Mesmer, although a regular physician, 
was driven out of Vienna, and with him his new remedy, magnetism. 
In spite of his connection with Dr. d'Eslon and many other noble 
patrons, in Paris also he had great difficulty in getting his new method 
legalized and the official report of the medical faculty, by Bailly, urged 
its suppression. In 1784 the chief of the Paris police received orders to 
put a stop to the scandals of the magnetizers. The Bevolution swept 
away the "harmonic" (magnetic) societies, and not until after the fall 
of Napoleon did they flourish again ; but the public authorities did not 
care to make regulations for a matter which was declared by all the 
scientists to lack real solidity. The Paris Academy of Medicine even 



114 HYPNOTISM. 

questioned whether it would be proper for that body to have animal 
magnetism investigated. However we know faom Husson's report 
that the investigation, which lasted for five years, was both thorough 
and favorable. But even at that time Husson complained that the 
physicians had neglected to take this process into their own hands, 
and that instead, they had allowed impostors and secret societies to 
work mischief. 

On the other hand, the question was treated with less prejudice in 
the northern countries. Figuier relates that the Emperor Alexander of 
Russia in 1815 ordered a committee to investigate magnetism. The 
committee declared magnetism to be a very important agency, but that 
just on that account it should be practiced only by skillful physicians. 
And to this end the emperor issued an ukase. , In 1877, the king of 
Denmark signed a resolution of the board of health, which allows mag- 
netism in medical practice, but only on the same conditions as in Russia. 
In the same year a royal decree was (according to Figuier) published in 
Sweden, which ordered that theses on magnetism would have to be 
defended for the degree of M. D. (?) We have not as yet found this 
decree. In the same year (1817), the king of Prussia also signed an 
order that only licensed physicians would be allowed to practice mag- 
netism, and in the next year the Berlin Academy of Sciences offered a 
prize of three thousand and three hundred francs for the best treatise 
on animal magnetism. Although the French government did not take 
any steps, yet many private scientists came forth to defend magnetism — 
such as Laplace, Cuvier, Arago, Bertrand, Georget, etc. We have already 
spoken of Husson's report, which in 1831 was buried in the archives of 
the Academy of Medicine. A new official report, hostile to Husson and 
magnetism, was sent in 1837 to the Academy by Dubois (of Amiens), and 
others. The report was received with acclamation by the Academy. 
Nevertheless Burdin offered a prize of three thousand francs to any one. 
who should prove that he could read without the aid of the eyes or 
without light. Pigeaire, a veterinary surgeon of Montpellier had a 
daughter Leonide, who was said to possess this power. He took her to 
Paris to gain the offered prize. Her seances succeeded admirably before 
the public, but as, at the final test, the Academy wished to provide the 
bandage for her eyes, and P. would not allow any other than the one she 
had used before, the test did not take place; and it was just as well, as 
Velpeau had shown that he could also read with her bandage. Another 
aspirant for Burdin's prize, Mile. Emilie, was found to have copied 
beforehand the passages in the book which she afterwards read. A 
third trial, with M. Teste and his somnambulist, failed completely. 
That after these exhibitions the Academy should have become still more 
sceptical towards magnetism, is not to be wondered at. On the other 
hand it was too hasty a decision that the Academy now made, viz. — 
forever to desist from all meddling with animal magnetism, in the same 



HYPNOTISM. 115 

way as the Academy of Sciences had then refused to have anything 
further to do with squaring of the circle and perpetual motion. 

The negligence of the physicians had for result, that magnetism 
for several decades fell almost exclusively into the hands of impostors 
and charlatans, and although, during the last decade, the scientists 
have at last begun to do their duty in cultivating a field which should 
become fruitful to science and to the health of man, yet it would 
hardly be believed how many needs still remain, especially in Paris, 
where there are said to be about five hundred "magnetic cabinets," 
so-called, where the public is cheated in the most shameful manner by 
professional magnetizers and somnambulists. A description of this 
swindle would be of great interest but it is not allowed by the limited 
space of this work. That legislation should seize upon and check such 
mischief and abuse is self-evident. Some countries have already set a 
good example and prohibited at least the public exhibitions of profes- 
sional, magnetizers, Italy, Austria and Switzerland, for instance. 

It is our opinion that magnetism or hypnotism, the far-reaching 
effects of which on both the physicial and psychical life of the human or- 
ganism cannot nowadays be denied by any cultivated person, should be 
dealt with the legislature like deadly poisons. None but licensed 
physicians should be allowed to practice hypnotism. What would be 
said if tramps were allowed to travel round and show the power of 
opium, chloroform, or chloral to put persons to sleep; or the power of 
strychnia to make one's limbs stiff; or the power of alcohol, belladonna, 
hashish, etc. to produce strange visions and delirium'? "We are aston- 
ished that hypnotizing in public is not already prohibited in all civilized 
countries where the question of poisons is regulated by law. On the 
other hand, hypnotism should be freely allowed in the service of medical 
science. For its proper practice both the physician's knowledge and 
the moral responsibility of his position are necessary. In the hand of 
the physician this two-edged sword can become a great blessing, in that 
of others an unmitigated evil. 



CHAPTER XII. 



MISUSES AND DANGERS OF HYPNOTISM. 



IN the previous chapter we have mentioned several of the abuses and 
dangers which may appear in the practice of hypnotism. This side 
of the subject, however, is of such importance and interest, that it 
deserves a separate chapter. 

If, until now, magnetism has not been used so much for entirely 
criminal purposes, as it might have given occasion for, yet it has in all 
ages been greatly misused for sordid gain by professional magnetizei'S, 



116 HYP NO TISM. 

who have had no other aim than to impose on the curiosity and credulity 
of the public. Still to-day, and especially in Paris, this imposture 
flourishes by the side of the scientific investigations on the subject. 
Gilles de la Tourette, who has taken great pains to force himself into 
the more or less secret magnetic societies and the cabinets of the som- 
nambulists and to expose their tricks, has, in his recently published 
work on hypnotism, given an interesting description of circumstances 
pertaining to this subject, from which we borrow the following. 

A " cabinet somnambule " in Paris is a real business-house, founded 
several years ago, and transferred from father to son, or more frequently 
from mother to daughter ; or it is a recently founded establishment 
which is later on transferred for a high price to some one else. The 
advertisement, which is generally found in the magnetic periodicals, 
looks, for instance, like this one which appeared in Chains Magnetique 
for February 15, 1886: 

MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 

Mrs-. Louis . . . 

SOMNAMBULIST, 

honorary member of various learned and humanistic societies. 

House established in 1859. 

(Address.) 

Private consultations every day, 1 to 5 P. M. except Sundays and holidays. 

Health, tests, voyages, advice, information. 

N. B.—Mrs. Louis .... has no branch office in Paris. 

The expense of founding such an establishment is not great. Two 
rooms suffice, the waiting-room and the consultation-room. As at a 
physician's, the furniture is in a sober style ; you move about silently. 
In the waiting-room you often meet a magnetizer ; he is almost indis- 
pensible ; for he must charge the somnambulist with his magnetic fluid 
and put her eminent self en rapport with you. After he has mediated 
this rapport, he returns to the waiting-room ; for in the inner room a 
lady is just now consulting about such delicate matters that he might 
intrude by his presence. Meanwhile he does what he can to inspire the 
clients with confidence both in the somnambulist and her magnetizer. 

But what kind of persons then are these professional magnetizers 
and somnambulists? Well, generally very dubious characters. The 
first-named are largely recruited from such classes as have had some 
superficial connection with medicine — students of pharmacy, apothe- 
caries, druggists, or students of medicine who never succeeded in pass 
ing their examinations. Furthermore there are the sons of magnetizers 
who find it most convenient to follow their father's profession. Highest 
in the scale stand doctors of medicine, who have succeeded in procuring 



HYPNOTISM. 117 

some cheap foreign diploma, and, we are ashamed to say, also one or two 
with a genuine Paris diploma, for whom ordinary practice has ceased, 
and who take refuge in this last resource and do not care particularly 
that their reputations diminish by this in the same degree as their cash 
increases. 

Gilles de la Tourette mentions a striking example of how one of his 
schoolmates became a magnetizer. The son of a well-to-do farmer- 
and gifted with an insuperable aversion to work, he had no success 
in his studies, but was employed for one year (1874) in a drug-store. 
In 1880 he appeared as a dentist in various country towns, where he 
adorned +he windows of very poor hotels with immense posters 
which e^d : "Monsieur X., dentist, professor of orthodontosie, ortho- 
dontechnie" etc. Unfortunately the public did not allow itself to be 
deluded by these boasting terms, so he had to try something new, and 
now became a magnetizer and the founder of a new medical journal (of 
which more than one number never appeared) marked: "Fifth year; 
No. 22," and which was, in great numbers, gratuitously distributed to 
the public. He now associated himself with his brother, who was a 
duly qualified, though dishonest, physician, and they 'traveled about 
from one country- town to another, the real doctor curing asthma, and 
the magnetizer giving both private and public seances with the assist- 
ance of his mistress, who could be hypnotized readily and who had a 
great talent for telling fortunes. But soon the woman deserted them, 
after a violent domestic scene, and it was then that the former 
" professor of orthodontosie " hunted up his old school-mate at La 
Salpetriere, in order to ask him to procure an experienced " subject." 
But a threat that he would be thrown out by two sturdy watchmen, 
soon made him retire. 

Another had for some time been a student at Charcot's clinic. His 
poverty had aroused general compassion, and many contributed to his 
support. After committing several thefts he finally disappeared and 
became a magnetizer, having first lured a suitable hysterical woman from 
La Salpetriere. Magnetizers generally are men whose lives are just 
about such wrecks as these. 

But what kind of persons then are the somnambulists ? 

These usually come from the lower classes — many of them cannot 
even write their own prescriptions, but must for this purpose employ the 
aid of a magnetizer. A somnambulist may have a daughter, who also 
becomes a somnambulist and afterwards continues her mother's profes- 
sion ; but most of them are women who from curiosity visit the public 
seances of the "magnetic society." These seances (about which more 
will be said hereafter) are important markets for somnambulists. There 
the women meet renowned magnetizers, who publicly hypnotize those 
who are willing to lend themselves to the experiment The future 
subject soon betrays her fitness by her nervous appearance. She is 



118 HYPNOTISM. 

easily persuaded to iet herself be hypnotized. Delighted, she is 
e ncouraged by the magnetizer and by her own family, who are proud to 
have a subject among them. She comes again and meets the same 
magnetizer. He invites her home to a " select circle," where her feat s 
will be witnessed by none but " connoisseurs." This is nothing but a 
public seance, for the personal invitations are given in the streets and 
every one pays from thirty to fifty centimes at the door. After a few 
such seances, she is invited to come to the magnetizer's private con- 
sultations, " so that he may develop her lucidity," and now she is caught 
in his net. Now she is a " goldfish " by which he earns quantities of 
money, until it strikes her thnt she would rather do business for her- 
self, as she is not satisfied with the five francs which is her usual fee. 
Sometimes however they agree equally to divide the income. These 
magnetizers, who develope and impose upon young somnambulists, are 
the ones who stand highest in reputation, and who are at the head of 
the " magnetic societies " as their founders, presidents, honorary mem- 
bers, etc. Their number is comparatively small — only forty or fifty in 
Paris. But besides, there are more than five hundred somnambulic 
cabinets in Paris, with a complete list of male and female assistants. 

When the magnetizer associates himself with the somnambulist, he 
often enters into more or less legal matrimonial relations with her, 
and now her lucidity is greatly " developed " by the secret signs, by 
which they communicate with each other. So it continues for some 
lime, until the magnetizer is cheated by his female assistant. Slyly 
she hires a separate apartment, bribes the janitor to direct the cus- 
tomers to her, and one fine day the bird has left its cage. For her 
new cabinet she hires a young magnetizer. He is a miserable wretch, 
who either now makes his debut in this profession or who has become 
a bankrupt in it, as his lazy, drunken habits prevent him from main- 
taining his own cabinet any longer. For the rest, the somnambulist is 
the active partner ; it is only required of the magnetizer that he shall 
know how to represent'the firm. He need not cost much either ; a 
little more or a little less "fluid" makes no difference. Besides a 
somnambulist has always several resources. She also tells fortunes 
from cards, from the palms of the hands, from coffee grounds, from 
the white of an egg, etc., for which no magnetizer is needed. 

But in order now to draw customers to the cabinet, advertising is 
used in all its forms. The fourth page of the newspapers can generally 
be had. There is printed in large type ; "Madame X., somnambule ; 
the past; the future; lost articles ; also by correspondence," etc. But 
such advertisements are expensive. Instead, circulars are printed and 
exhibited in barbers' shops, in barrooms, in tobacco-shops ; or they are 
distributed in the streets. Or a bill is posted in the window: "-Here 
the future is foretold." The former customary addition : " Consultation 
five francs " is omitted, but the fee has not been changed. " Personal 



HYPNOTISM. 119 

invitation-cards " on red and blue paper are distributed to every one. 
Then the seance is gratuitous, except the compulsory fifty centimes 
to the door-keeper. The small apartment is soon crowded. The 
somnambulist, who has a smile for every one, lets herself be put 
asleep by the magnetizer, attired in evening-dress (hired for the 
occasion), and now she gives gratuitous advice to all who desire to 
honor her w r ith their confidence. Then she excites their curiosity 
without satisfying it. The next day most of them return for a con- 
sultation for which they pay. If they do not return, they at least 
spread her reputation ; she immediately becomes a celebrity and a 
member of the better magnetic societies. Thus "a good house " is 
formed. 



Let us now cast a glance at the magnetic societies (les societes de 
magnetisme). These trace their origin to Mesmer, who in 1783 
founded the famous " harmonic society " {Loge or Societe de V 
Jlarmonie), consisting of one hundred members, who as entrance-fee 
bad to pay the neat little sum of one hundred louis d'or, or two thous- 
and four hundred francs a head. The members soon found themselves 
cheated and demanded their money back. But Mesmer accused them 
of having betrayed his secrets, and kept it. In 1784, a society with 
the same name was founded in Strasburg by the Marquis de Puysegur, 
and at the same time a Societe de la Gnyenne by his brother in 
Bordeaux. Now the brilliant and respectable period began for the 
magnetic societies, which soon flourished in all the larger cities, and 
were directed by rich, honorable and well-meaning men, who at least 
intended to heal the sick, gratuitously, by magnetism. These societies 
were dissolved by the Kevolution and the wars of the Empire, but 
weie re-established at the Restoration, although with varying success. 
The Baron du Potet now became the soul of these societies, from 1825 
to 1860, and he took up the fight against the academic authorities. 
His Journal, founded in 1845, became the organ of all the societies, 
and his " Traite du Magnetisme Animal " was in everyone's hands, 
Nevertheless he lived to witness the decadence of these societies, that 
is, their change into mere business enterprises ; and on several 
occasions, he had to express his indignation at seeing the old " phil- 
anthropic temples " change into "shops." 

The present societies in Paris are such transformations of the old 
ones. Thus V Ecole de V Union Magnetique of 1883 has absorbed the 
old societies La Societe Magnetique of 1815, La S. Philanthropico- 
magnetique of 1840, Le Jury Magnetique of 1847, and La Societe de 
Magnetisme de Paris of 1853. 

Every society generally has its literary organ, usually a monthly, 
which serves partly to discuss magnetic subjects, but chiefly to 
advertise its members, masnetizers and somnambulists. One of the 



120 HYPNOTISM. 

latest arid most prominent — "La Chaine Magnetique — belongs to a 
vice-president and founder of " V Institution Magentologique de 
.Paris" and is a bitter opponent of the "Revue Spirite". 

The societies, which always have a philanthropical motto on their 
signs! — " Let us seek the truth," "Let us do good," etc. — are open 
to men and women, usually at two francs a month, which money is spent 
in hiring a large hall for the meetings, — for instance, a cafe in the Palais 
Koyal — which have as their real object the personal advertisement of 
the members, and which are good markets for somnambulists. Those 
who attend may be divided into two classes — the deceiving and the 
deceived. Among the former are those noted magnetizers and som- 
nambulists, who let themselves be put to sleep to advertise the private 
cabinets. Among the latter are the " invited ;" these must be "per- 
sonally invited," as the societies are considered private. But never- 
theless the door is open to any one who pays the customary fee to the 
janitor. The audience is very mixed ; in the first place we find mem- 
bers who. are neither magnetizers nor somnambulists, but persons of 
leisure, such as old military pensioners and a few rentiers, who find it 
amusing to while away the time by this comedy. Furthermore, we 
find whole families, including children; young girls who become 
somnambulists ; and finally some skeptics, who scoff loudly enough to 
make the president threaten to eject them. 

Let us enter when the seance is at its height ; it is about nine 
P. M. On a small platform the president and two assistants are 
seated. A book-case with carefully labeled books rises behind them. 
Their even arrangement shows that they are not often used. A deep 
silence prevails. With imposing gestures, four magnetizers at one 
time give forth their fluid upon four subjects, chosen from those in 
the audience who have offered themselves. One, who has now suf- 
ficiently prepared his subject, shows the tricks he can do with her. 
He crosses her arms with contracture and lets the astonished public 
convince itself of the tetanus. But the bait for the evening is the 
"gratuitous consultation." An aged somnambulist, with her fingers 
loaded with large rings, sits down before a magnetizer. He begins to 
gesticulate vigorously ; he communicates his magnetic fluid to her, 
first slowly and powerfully, then more violently, then with gradually 
diminishing force, until the pythoness is asleep. Then he announces 
to the audience that Madame S. is ready to give advice to those who 
desire it. A young man steps forward and sits down before her. She 
touches him with her finger, paws over him and says slowly : " Yes — 
I see — you cough a little — I see — in your body — right through your 
body — the trachea — the bronchise — the lungs — ah ! tubercles — no, not 
tubercles — but a cavity." (The consulting person is frightened; 
flattering murmur from the audience, already astonished at the scienti- 
fic ability of the somnambulist.) "You must take care of yourself/ 



HYPNOTISM. 121 

she resumes. " In order to make matters right again, you must drink 
a glass of magnetized water every morning and evening." 

The consultation is finished. The young man promises to come to 
Madame S. the next day, in order to get — for money of course — the 
saving drink. 

"Is there any one in the audience, who wishes to make a journey ?•' 
the magnetizer asks. That takes place thus : One of the company 
comes forward and moves in his thoughts from one place to another, 
and by her lucidity the somnambulist will understand and loudly an- 
nounce, where the traveller is at every moment. Once when Gilles de 
'la Tourette was present, the experiment was made as follows. " Well," 
the somnambulist says, "we are on a road — long — very long. I see a 
house — Oh, yes! — a large house." "Isn't that right?" the magnetizer 
interrupts — " Almost" is the answer. The somnambulist leans against 
the traveler to gain better rapport. " There are persons — many persons 
in this house — clothes are hanging in the windows." Then a long- 
pause, during which the magnetizer again charges with his " fluid" the 
somnambulist, whose lucidity seems to give out — "Ah! — I see — there 
is also a river in the vicinity." — "Is not that right ; isn't it true?" says 
the magnetizer. "Almost," the doubting traveler answers. — "Along 
the river there are trees — large trees." New pause, during w^hich the 
somnambulist puts her hands to her head and appears to be suffering. 
— "Large trees — yes, I see" (she grasps the traveller's hands). — "The 
landscape is very fine"(she pants). — " That is so," the traveler says, 
"but what is the name of the river? " — "Sir! the somnambulist is not 
to be questioned," the magnetizer says sternly ; "I alone can put you in 
rapport with her. You disturb her freedom ; in this w 7 ay you make her 
sick, very sick." He recommences his magnetic passes. Somewhat 
disconcerted and puzzled, the traveller retires, under a disapproving 
murmur from the audience. 

But the somnambulist cannot stop at this failure. She must have 
a brilliant revenge. Now a person steps forward, one who is never 
absent from any seance ; a crank with white hair and almost entirely 
blind, but a fanatical believer in magnetism, w r ho claims to owe every- 
thing to the advice of the somnambulists. — Thanks to the magnetizer s 
fluid, the somnambulist has become calmer. The magnetizer recog- 
nizes his faithful customer and asks: "Is there any one else w r ho 
wishes to consult ?" The half -blind crank, w r ho steps forward with 
several others, is selected (\) by the magnetizer, is made to sit down 
silently, and is told to answer questions, but not to ask any disturbing 
questions himself. "You suffer much!" — "Yes, Madame." — "In your 
head, don't you?" the somnambulist says ; she has recognized the man 
by his voice, for her eyes are closed. " Yes, Madame." — " It is in 
your eyes that you suffer, but you will become well." The consulting 
person becomes w T ild with joy. He turns to the audience, makes an 



122 HYPNOTISM. 

enthusiastic speech (always the same one), relates that he has been 
cured of six diseases by somnambulists, that he would have been blind 
long ago (he can hardly see to find his way !), if he had not employed 
magnetism. And he has also studied and has become a magnetizer 
himself. With elaborate gestures he unloads some of the immense 
quantity of fluid that he has in him, and exhorts those present to 
become faithful believers in magnetism. 

During this harangue the magnetizer has awakened the somnam- 
bulist, who, after congratulations from the president, descends from 
her throne ; and without being bewildered by her success, she gra- 
ciously distributes her business cards : " Madame S., every day from — - 
to — ; the past; the future ; lost articles ; diseases; etc." The next day 
she can count upon good receipts from her private cousultations. Sim- 
ilar advertisements are distributed among the company by at least half 
a dozen respectable ladies, each more "lucid" than the other. Then 
you can witness a nice little quarrel between the rival ladies, who are 
to each other in the relation of cat and dog, just as the different soci- 
eties and journals are in a constant strife among themselves. 

It might be asked whether the somnambulists really sleep or only 
pretend to do so. In their youth, most of them have been nervous, 
hysterical, natural somnambulists, who have exercised their talent by 
means of hypnotism, and they are at least capable of genuine somnam- 
bulism ; but as they grow old, they often find it more convenient to 
deceive the public by simulated sleep. Or they hire one or two young 
somnambulists, w r ho have to work at a salary in their cabinets, while 
they inconvenience themselves only on rare occasions and for specially 
favored customers. We have already mentioned that, uneducated 
though they may seem, yet in the genuine somnambulistic state they 
really give astonishingly apt and* intelligent advice. Moreover they 
are so well-trained by the magnetizers, that they always have on hand 
a stock of learned phrases meet for every occasion. 

It is saddening to find what an attraction their mystic art exercises 
on all classes in Paris, too often even on the best educated ; clever som- 
nambulists sometimes succeed in making for themselves nests in fam- 
ilies, so that nothing of importance can be undertaken without these 
oracles being asked for advice ; and usually these vampires will not let 
a good customer off until his purse has been almost drained. They do 
an especially good business by their pretended power of finding hidden 
treasures. But after the great compensation, agreed upon, has once 
been extorted, they artfully withdraw from the game. But fortune- 
telling is practiced by them, not only during somnambulism, but also 
in various other ways, as by "faire le tamis" that is: — by letting drops 
of water fall through a fine sieve — by palmistry, by coffee-grounds, by 
the white of an egg which takes various shapes when poured into water, 
by melting lead, etc. 






7/ YPNO TISM. 123 

The more noted somnambulists are often in conspiracy with physi- 
cians and druggists. They pay a physician — alas ! there are in Paris 
qualified medical men who lend themselves to this knavery — who signs 
their prescriptions, so that they may not be fined for quackery, and 
they receive a good commission from the pharmacists and druggists to 
whom they send their customers to buy the medicines. Every one is 
swindled by these blood-suckers. They can also be consulted "par 
correspondance " — if the fee is paid in advance. 

This " magnetic league," which works its mischief in Paris, is a 
vast organization. Besides the five hundred somnambulic cabinets 
already mentioned, it has its twenty periodicals, special clinics for the 
sick and for instruction in magnetism, and is at present supposed to 
have more than forty thousand followers. There are also " mag- 
netiseurs-masseurs" so-called, who, at their homes or in the house of 
the patient, combine massage with magnetism. These, however, have a 
more despised position, and are considered as the " barbers " of mag- 
netism. The magnetic societies of Paris have branch-departments in the 
country, with which they are in close connection. 

Finally we arrive at the public theatrical appearances of travelling 
magnetizers, who, for money, exhibit magnetic and hypnotic phenomena. 
Besides the improper way in which these "artists," under the false title 
of doctors or professors, swindle money out of the public, they also do 
great harm in various ways, some times to the subjects, who trustingly 
lend themselves to their dangerous experiments, sometimes indirectly 
by tempting other adventurers to imitate them in private or in public. 
The most famous of the travelling magnetizers of recent times are Dhont, 
who calls himself Donato, and Hansen, a Dane. The former has been 
expelled from Italy, the latter from Austria, and in both these coun- 
tries, as also in Switzerland (at least in some cantons) and in Copen- 
hagen, laws have been enacted against the public practice of hypno- 
tism by those who are not physicians. 

Concerning the results of Donato's practice, Prof. Lombroso of 
Turin reports as follows : An artillery officer, who was hypnotized by 
Donato at a public seance, afterwards became almost insane. From 
time to time he had attacks of spontaneous hypnotism at the sight of 
any shining object. He would follow a carriage lamp in the street, as 
though spell-bound. One evening, if his fellow-officer had not saved 
him, he would have been crushed to death by going directly towards 
an approaching carriage. A violent hysterical crisis followed this and 
the man had to take to his bed. 

Two students hypnotized themselves by staring at their compasses. 
After that, it became impossible for them to draw, without falling 
asleep. A # railroad employe had convulsions and a violent attack of 
insanity. A young man of seventeen became morally depraved, was 
without sleep for three nights, and became deranged. 



124 IIYPSO TISM. 

In Milan and Turin, many of those present at the seances grew 
sick and contracted headache and insomnia. Many went involuntarily 
to sleep in the hall. The physicians of Turin found a decided change 
for the worse in their nervous patients who had attended either as 
subjects for hypnotizing or merely as spectators. 

Like sequelce are also reported after Hansen's appearance in Bres- 
lau, for instance, where a perfect fever for magnetizing arose among 
the young people, who amused themselves by " The Hansen game,'' so 
that many fell ill. One boy alarmed his parents by a tetanic spasm of 
several hours duration ; the physician who was called cured him by a 
sharp blow on the ear. 

To gain speedier results and the more effectually to impose upon 
their astonished audiences, Donato and Hansen often used a very 
exhausting and dangerous method causing their subjects to whirl rap- 
idly around so as to produce congestion of the brain and exhaust their 
strength, whereupon they frightened them to sleep by suddenly star- 
ing at" their eyes. 

Many a time it has happened that an ignorant magnetizer has been 
able to hypnotize but not to dehypnotize ; thus the nervous system may 
suffer irremediable injury. By a few hypnoses,- many women, who 
previously had only a slumbering disposition to hysteria, have had this 
disease brought to full activity with violent hysterical attacks. 

From all this we find, that hypnotism is not to be trifled with ; 
that it can harm in various ways, and that it requires all the skill and 
conscientiousness of an experienced physician to properly use this pow- 
erful agency. 






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SELECT WORKS OF GRANT ALLEN, Containing : 

THE EVOLUTIONIST AT LARGE, 
VIGNETTES FROM NATURE, and 
FORCE AND ENERGY, A Theory of Dynamics. 

Three books in one vol. Cloth. . . . . .1.00 

WATER, ELECTRICITY AND LIGHT, By PROFESSOR JOHN 
TYNDALL, Containing: 

FORMS OF WATER IN CLOUDS AND RIVERS, Ice and Glac- 
iers. 19 illustrations. 
LESSONS IN ELECTRICITY. 60 Illustrations 
SIX LECTURES ON LIGHT. Illustrated. 

Three books in 1 vol. Cloth. . . . r . 1.00 

WORKS BY HERBERT SPENCER. 

THE DATA OF ETHICS. Cloth .60 

EDUCATION, Intellectual, Moral and Physical. 
PROGRESS : Its Law and Cause. With other disquisitions. 

Two books in one vol. Cloth. . . . . .75 

THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 

Two books in one vol. Cloth. . . . . . .75 

SELECT WORKS OF RICHARD A. PROCTOR, F.R.A.S.: 

o 

LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 

FAMILIAR ESSAYS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. 

HEREDITARY TRAITS, and other Essays. 

MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 

ILLUSIONS OF THE SENSES, and other Essays. 

NOTES ON EARTHQ UAKES, with fourteen miscellaneous Essays. 

Six books in one vol. . . . . . . 1.5C 

SELECT WORKS OF WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD, F.R.A.S., 

CONTAINING : 

SEEING AND THINKING. 

THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF MORALS, and other Essays. 
CONDITIONS OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT, and other Essays. 
THE UNSEEX UNIVERSE, and the Philosophy of the Pure Sciences. 
COSMIC EMOTION: ALSO THE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE, 
Five books in one vol. Cloth. . . . . .1.25 



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SELECT WORKS OF EDWARD CLODD, F.R.A.S., Containing: 

THE CHILDHOOD OF RELIGION. 

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH, and 

THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WORLD. 

Three books in 1 vol. Cloth. . . . 1.00 

SELECT WORKS OF TH. RIBOT, Translated from the French 
by J. FITZGERALD, M.A., Containing : 
THE DISEASES OF MEMORY. 
THE DISEASES OF THE WILL, and 
THE DISEASES OF PERSONALITY, 

Three books in one vol. Cloth. . . . . .1.00 

THE MILKY WAY, Containing : 
THE WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS, (Thirty- two Illustrations). By 

Camille Flammarion. 
THE ROMANCE OF ASTROMOMY. By R. Kalley Miller, MA. 
THE SUN ; its Constitution, its Phenomena, its Condition. By Nathan T. 
Carr,LL.D. 

Three books in one vol. . . . . . 1.00 

POLITICAL SCIENCE, Containing : 
PHYSICS AND POLITICS. An application of the principles of Natura 1 
Science to Political Society. By Walter Bagehot, author of " The English 
Constitution." 
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS. By Frederick 
Pollock. 

Two books in one vol. . . : . . . .75 

THE LAND QUESTION, Containing : 

THE HISTORY OF LANDHOLDING IN ENGLAND. B y 

Joseph Fisher, F.R.H.S., and 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND 
IN ENGLAND. By William Lloyd Birbeck, M.A. 

Two books in one vol. . . . . . . .75 

THE MYSTERY OF MATTER, and THE PHILOSOPHY OF IGNOR- 
ANCE. 

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF RELIGION, By J. Allanson 
Picton. Two books in one vol. Cloth. . . . . .75 

SCIENCE AND CRIME, and 

SCIENCE AND POETRY, with other Essays. By Andrew Wilson, 
F.R.S.E. Two books in one vol. Cloth. . . . .75 

CURRENT DISCUSSIONS IN SCIENCE, and 

SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF SOME FAMILIAR THINGS. By 

W. M. Williams, F.C.S. 

Two books in one vol. Cloth. . . . . . .75 

THE BLACK DEATH, an Account of the Great Pestilence of the Four- 
teenth Century, and 
THE DANCING MANIA OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By J. F. C. 

Hecker, M.D. 

Two books in one vol. Cloth. . . . . . .75 



THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZON. A Record of 
Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life and 
Aspects of Nature under the Equator during Eleven Years of Travel, by 
Henry Walter Bates, F.L.S., Assistant Secretary to the Royal Geographical 
Society of England. Cloth. . . . . . . .75 

THE RISE AND EARLY CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSI- 
TIES, with a survey of Mediaeval Education. By S. S. Laurie, LL.D., 
Professor of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of 
Edinburgh, Cloth. . . . . . . . .75 

THE RELIGIONS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD, including Egypt, 
Assyria and Babylonia, Persia, India, Phoenicia, Etruria, Greece, Rome. By 
George Rawlinson. M.A., Camden Professor of Ancient History, Oxford, 
and Canon of Canterbury, author of " The Origin of Nations," " The Five 
Great Monarchies," etc. Cloth. ..... .75 

FETICHISM : A Contribution to Anthropology and the History of Religion. 

By Fritz Schultze. Translated from the German by J. Fitzgerald, M.A. 

Cloth. ......... .75 

MONEY AND THE MECHANISM OF EXCHANGE, by W. 

Stanley Jevons, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of Logic and Political Economy in 
the Owens College, Manchester. Cloth. . . . .75 

ON THE STUDY OF WORDS. By Richard Chenevix Trench, D.D., 

Archbishop of Dublin. Cloth. . . . . . .75 

THE DAWN OF HISTORY: An Introduction to Pre-Historic Study, 
edited by C. F. Keary, M.A., of the British Museum. Cloth. . .75 

GEOLOGICAL SKETCHES AT HOME AND ABROAD. By 

Archibald Geikie, LL.D., F.R.S., Director-General of the Geological Sur- 
veys of Great Britain and Ireland. Cloth. . . .75 

ILLUSIONS : A Psychological Study. By James Sully, author of "Sensation 
and Intuition," "Pessimism," etc. Cloth. . . . .75 

THE PLEASURES OF LIFE. (Part I. and Part II.) By Sir John Lub- 
bock, Bart. Two parts in one. . . . . . .75 

ENGLISH PAST AND PRESENT, (Part I. and Part II.) By Richard 
Chenevix Trench. Two Parts in One, Complete, . . . .75 

THE STORY OF CREATION. A Plain Account of Evolution, By 
Edward Clodd, F.R.A.S. With over 80 Illustrations. . . .75 

HYPNOTISM. Its HHory and Development, By Fredrik Bjbrnstrom, M. D., 
Head Physician of the Stockholm Hospital, Professor of Psychiatry, Late Royal 
Swedish Medical Councillor. Authorized translation from the Second Swedish 
Edition by Baron Nils Posse, M. G., Director of the Boston School of Gymnastics 
Cloth, extra, ......... .75 



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